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Newsom always deflects questions from the opposition effort by saying it is particularly focused on vaccinating Californians and reducing the spread of Covid-19. He categorically denied that his abrupt decision to quash stay-at-home orders last month was an attempt to calm voters’ frustration. And he seems determined to avoid legitimizing the effort by acknowledging it.
But California Democrats and their political supporters nonetheless brace for a campaign as recall organizers secure hundreds of thousands of signatures. State lawmakers are declaring their support for Newsom, seeking to mitigate any signs of disunity. Interest groups and donors who would be called upon to fund a defense against the recall are quietly multiplying, with a union launching the first public counteroffensive.
“Are we ready to oppose it? Of course, ”said Joe Cotchett, a longtime ally and Newsom donor.
Almost 18 years ago, California’s lone gubernatorial recall drew 135 candidates, including several B-list celebrities and one A-lister: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took office on a Republican pledge to clean up the government of the state. With just two statewide elections in the United States this year – governors races in Virginia and New Jersey – another California recall would likely become the biggest political event of 2021.
Putting the reminder on the ballot is the first vote; voters would then have to decide in a special election whether or not to recall Newsom and simultaneously which candidate they would prefer instead.
The recall may still not be eligible. The deadline to certify is March 17th and the campaign is still operating on a shoestring budget by statewide campaign standards, relying on volunteers and paid mail to collect the 1.5 million valid signatures they need. Supporters say they have 1.3 million signatures in total, still a far cry from the nearly 2 million they’ll likely need to make up for invalid signatories.
Still, the campaign had a surprisingly high rate of valid signatures in the latest statewide report through early January, hovering around 85%. To date, California County Registrars have verified approximately 600,000 signatures.
“This public report shows a very high validity rate, but their ultimate success hinges on a few things: what happens to their response rate and what happens to their validity rates because they need to expand their audience beyond anti- Newsom hearings? Said Ned Wigglesworth, a consultant who is not affiliated with the campaign. “This huge flag is, as they work their way through the voters list, have they got this fruit at their fingertips?”
Some supporters don’t wait to see. The National Union of Healthcare Workers has launched an effort to dissuade people from signing the recall, including testimonials from hospital workers about how a Newsom recall would jeopardize them, after “it became clear that it might qualify and that people wanted to do something about it, ”said union president Sal Rosselli.
“We cannot risk opening the door to a new administration that is much less prepared to get people vaccinated and much less committed to protecting health care,” Rosselli said, adding that he had spoken with d other union leaders and hoped to win. “Friends who could make important contributions.”
Two of the state’s most respected polls this week showed Newsom’s support plummeted after the state’s worst pandemic period, in which hospitals were filled beyond capacity and l State has passed 40,000 deaths from Covid-19. The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies survey painted a worse picture for Newsom, showing its approval rating dropped from two-thirds in September to 46% now among all registered voters. Newsom can be comforted by the Public Policy Institute of California poll, which showed him 52% support among likely voters; that’s down from the 59 percent it had in November, but still slightly higher than its pre-pandemic figures.
Growing voter dissatisfaction may lead to the recall qualifying, but that doesn’t mean it will pass. Democrats have a 46% to 24% registration advantage over Republicans in California, and the IGS poll shows a 45% majority said they would vote to keep Newsom, compared with 36% supporting his withdrawal.
A day after these polls highlighted Newsom’s precariousness, the governor appeared at a press conference on Wednesday in which Bay Area allies praised his handling of the coronaviruses. “I speak to mayors across the country, and I can’t tell you how lucky we are in California to have Gavin Newsom as governor,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in introducing him.
As allies rally to Newsom’s defense, they will likely remind voters in this predominantly Democratic state that the recall was launched by Tories and Republicans who backed President Donald Trump – and that the two main GOP challengers supported the president who was deeply unpopular in the state. However, even in California, they can’t go too far in their Newsom defense; State Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks came under heavy criticism last month when he called the legal recall effort a “coup,” trying to draw a parallel between the signature and seat of the US Capitol.
Unlike a normal governor’s race, recalls do not limit campaign contributions. This means Newsom could leverage all the financial might of its supporters, including the state’s powerful organized labor movement. California Federation of Labor spokesman Steve Smith said union leaders were discussing contingency plans to protect a “Democratic governor who has done a lot of good things for workers.”
“That may not qualify, but we’ll always be looking to the future,” Smith said, and although he said the groups had not specifically discussed funding, “obviously, any campaign you talk about allocating resources. “
But an effort to rally that support could face lingering tensions with labor officials continuing to boil over what they see as Newsom’s uneven track record, including the veto on a security bill. job and lend a listening ear to gig companies like Uber in a confrontation over the classification of workers. A union official told the Los Angeles Times that Newsom was “putting us to death” after moving basic food workers out of a higher level of immunization.
Teachers’ unions, an indispensable political force for Democrats in California, are also pushing back Newsom’s efforts to reopen schools. After the governor said the union demands would effectively mean classrooms would remain empty, the California Teachers Association countered that their insistence on vaccines as a precondition was “neither a new nor an unreasonable notion.”
Some black women remain angry with Newsom for not nominating a black woman to replace Vice President Kamala Harris, whose departure from the Senate means the chamber does not have African American women. “Newsom and the Party have better hopes that black women don’t decide to teach them a lesson and sign the recall or not participate in the poll,” Jasmyne Cannick, Los Angeles-based political strategist and Democratic Party delegate, said stated in an email.
And the governor’s efforts to build a united front of elected Democrats met with the same coronavirus turbulence that drove the recall effort. Late last year, Newsom called on state lawmakers to make sure they support him. Several elected officials joined a January press conference organized in part by the Newsom team which denounced the recall as a project of the right-wing fringe. But many Democratic lawmakers publicly attacked Newsom’s decision to reopen last week, saying they had been blinded and questioning the rationale.
Still, some of those lawmakers acted to quickly temper their criticism, signaling that they saw party unity overriding their grievances with the governor. After tweeting her frustration, Assembly Member Laura Friedman (D-Los Angeles) went on to stress that she supported Newsom and opposed the recall, telling POLITICO in a text message that she was “appalled that people seem to think my comments were some sort of indictment of the governor or his job. “
“I think the Democratic Party will continue to support him,” said Senator Steve Glazer, who has been louder than many Democrats in questioning Newsom’s decisions on the coronavirus as not going far enough to protect residents. “No one in the Democratic Party will be happy with any of the current Republican candidates in their place.”
In addition to those Republican candidates – a list that so far includes former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and 2018 Newsom opponent, businessman John Cox – the reminder of freedom for all is raising the threat of a viable Democrat who throws himself into the challenge of Newsom if he is seen as vulnerable. This is what happened in 2003, when Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante presented himself as an alternative to Governor Gray Davis. Bustamante’s bet fell through and his political career fell apart – a lesson that has not been lost on the current crop of California Democrats.
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