Newsom’s California rappelling race was tight in Fresno and Merced

Fresno –

Almost everywhere you look in California, the special election to kick Gavin Newsom out of the governor’s mansion was one blowout after another.

At one end of the spectrum, 86% of San Franciscans voted to let Newsom finish his term, compared with a meager 14% who wanted to give him the boot. The Lassen County vote was a mirror image of electoral emotion; 84% voted to get rid of him, compared to 16% who wanted him to stay.

In 48 of California’s 58 counties, from Oregon to the Mexican border, voters either loved him or hated him, with double-digit differences on Saturday afternoon between yes and no.

With the exception of a small island in the middle of this vast state, where the recall election was a scam.

Here in the agricultural heartland of California, where drought weighs heavily and the pandemic even heavier, the results have been nearly 50-50.

In Merced County, the recall lost by 38 votes. In Fresno County, where the population has just passed one million, he won by less than 2,000, according to an updated tally released by local election officials on Friday afternoon.

In both counties, this equates to one percentage point or less between yes and no.

Parity in a polarized world.

Both sides here claim victory and both see Latino voters as an important part of their success. The counting of the ballots continues statewide, and not much will be known for sure until the vote is certified in a little over a month. The political image could change at the county level.

But some things are clear. The recall failed dramatically statewide. And demography is fate.

“The proportion of Latinos [in the Central Valley] growing rapidly, and to the extent that Latinos have shown a preference for the Democratic Party, it is an indicator of a strong future for Democrats, ”said Thomas Holyoke, professor of political science at State University of Fresno. “But the Latin vote is breaking down. … Early returns from the recall show that many Latino men supported the recall. “

In Fresno County, the Latino population jumped 15.5% between 2010 and 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, while the white population fell 10.7%. The change has been even greater in Merced, with a population of 281,000 and change. The Latin American population grew 23.8%, while the white population fell 15.8%.

One Friday afternoon, just before the Fresno vote count update, Alicia Olivarez drove her silver Nissan Rogue through the streets of Southeast Fresno. It’s an area of ​​modest homes, chain-link fences, and anti-theft bars, where she and others with Power California Action have reached out to young Latino voters.

“We reached out to 15% of the electorate in Merced,” said Olivarez, director of policy and storytelling for the group, which operates from San Diego to Santa Rosa. “We called Fresno and the Central Valley. We knocked on the door in Merced. [During the recall] we put all our resources in one place. That’s why we see these numbers close.

Olivarez was the first person in his family to vote. It was 2012. She was living in Oakland, about to turn 24, scared, “not knowing what to do.”

Her colleagues at a Bay Area nonprofit helped her register, find her polling station, develop a voting plan. When it was over, she took a photo with her “I voted!” sticker. Then she helped her parents register and vote – her father who worked in agriculture and construction, her mother who worked in a factory. Then his brother and sister.

Another of these young voters is Crisantema Gallardo. Like Olivarez, she left and came back to fight for a better life for her farming parents and others like them after graduating from UC Berkeley. For five years, she said, she helped register Latino voters like her in Merced, preaching that as the growing majority here, “their truth should be at the forefront” of politics.

Today, along with community organizers, political activists and unions, she is helping thousands of young Latinos in the traditionally Red Central Valley make this a reality.

Data from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative shows that Latino residents of Merced County voted 75% against the recall, while white voters voted 75% in favor of ousting Newsom. The takeaway, said Sonja Diaz, founder and director of the UCLA Center, is that the California electorate is increasingly influenced by young voters of color, even as “mature” white voters decline across the board. State.

This demographic shift should fuel a shift in the way campaigns are run, Diaz said, prioritizing outreach to diverse communities rather than seeing them as an addition to traditional voter outreach.

“We need to stop relegating diverse voters to the margins,” she said.

Lindsay Hopkins was field director of the Stop the Republican Recall campaign and deputy political director of the Service Employees International Union. She said much of the effort in the Central Valley was aimed at moving beyond the notion of “Latino voting” and recognizing the diversity of communities of color.

Election experts have already started to analyze how Latinos voted on the recall. The first result is that more Latinos were against than for, she said. But they backed the Democratic position at lower percentages than in previous elections, according to analysis by election data expert Paul Mitchell.

This has caused a lot of concern about Republican incursions among immigrant voters. However, unions and community groups already knew, Hopkins said, that “ethnicities are not a monolith that does things one way, and that means being able to have real conversations with people.”

Fred Vanderhoof, Chairman of the Fresno County Republican Party, here points to the recall’s slim margin of victory as a huge success for the GOP. Her changing county was important to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and so did Joe Biden in 2020.

But several factors helped turn Tuesday’s recall election into a Fresno County squeaker, he said. A leap in Latino Republicans is one of them. The increased voter awareness by the Republican Party is another. And crime. And inflation. And water.

The drought has taken a heavy toll on agriculture in the central valley, and farmers accuse the Newsom administration of cutting off the supply of irrigation water that typically flows to the region from rivers and streams. state streams.

“Water is our lifeblood here in the valley,” said Vanderhoof. “Our farms depend on water. Our supply is being cut off by politicians in Sacramento. Democrats insist fish are getting enough water. … Too much is going into the delta and not enough for farmers.

While Vanderhoof was pleased with the tight results of the Fresno County recall, Tina, a Republican voter who declined to give her last name, was surprised the recall didn’t go better here. She moved to Clovis – Fresno’s dark red neighbor – from Orange County in 2013.

“It’s more conservative here than that,” she said Thursday night, as she walked to her seat in Chukchansi Park to watch the Fresno Grizzlies take on the San Jose Giants. “There are so many farms here. … I voted yes and Larry and everyone else I know too. I don’t know a soul who voted no.

That would be yes on the recall and a vote for Tory talk show host Larry Elder to take over if Newsom had been impeached.

The Grizzlies crowd was small but boisterous as the hometown boys beat the visiting team 7-6. They squeal and frolic for the Chicken Shack dance camera. They applauded when their team took the lead late in the fourth inning and never looked back.

Shawn Wisley had just bought a hot dog – in his opinion, the only acceptable food at a minor league baseball stadium on a bright summer night. He returned to his seat as the Grizzlies began to score the five points that put them ahead of the Giants in fourth.

Wisley is an educator in nearby Selma. He is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. He is a registered Democrat who voted against the recall and supports mask mandates. He fears that schools will be forced to revert to distance education if the Delta variant of the coronavirus is not stopped.

And he believes the warrants helped fuel Central Valley’s anger at Newsom, which is a big reason the recall was so close.

Consider Cornerstone Church, he says. Just a mile from downtown Fresno Stadium, the church was part of a lawsuit against the Newsom administration after religious institutions were banned from hosting in-person services due to the pandemic.

“In Fresno County, if you come in from the Clovis side, you won’t see a mask,” he said.

He recently drove to Kingsburg, a small town south of Fresno proper. There too, no masks.

“I don’t think there is anything other than that,” said the 45-year-old. “The stop because of the masks and COVID. “

Yet a close call is a close call, whether it’s politics or baseball. It took 10 innings for the Grizzlies to claim victory on Thursday night.

And, on Saturday, the difference between yes and no on the recall in Fresno and Merced counties was still a percentage point or less.