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A majority of California voters likely to keep Gov. Gavin Newsom in office if a recall election takes place today, new poll shows as vaccinations in the state rise and Democratic governor steps up campaign to fight against efforts to remove him.
Of the 1,174 likely voters polled by California’s Public Policy Institute, 56% said they oppose the recall and 40% support it, with the rest undecided. More than three-quarters of likely voters said the worst of the pandemic was over.
The results of the poll, conducted March 14-23, reflect more Californians starting to see “light at the end of the tunnel” in the COVID-19 pandemic, said Mark Baldassare, chairman of the ‘institute.
“Support for continuing the Newsom government has become much more optimistic about the direction things will take with COVID than in January,” Baldassare said. “All of these things work in the interest of maintaining the status quo.”
Voters were widely divided along party lines, with 79% of Republicans in favor of the recall and the same proportion of Democrats in opposition. The overall percentage of likely voters in favor of Newsom’s ouster, 40%, is about the same as the proportion of Californians who voted for Republican John Cox in the 2018 gubernatorial election.
Dan Newman, a political spokesperson for Newsom, said the poll results confirm that the recall “is a purely partisan ploy designed because Republicans cannot win the election in California.”
“It shows once again that the recall is backed by the same diehards who will always vote Republican Trump against Democrat,” Newman said.
Supporters of the recall say they submitted more than 2.1 million voters’ signatures by the mid-March deadline. Based on information released by election officials earlier this month, it is likely that enough signatures will be validated to trigger a recall election in the fall. Final statements may not be available until April 29.
Newman said the poll results were largely in line with a previous poll which found only about a third of voters supported a recall.
He also highlighted Newsom’s 53% approval rating among likely voters – which was largely unchanged from the last PPIC poll in January and another poll conducted in February 2020 before the pandemic began – and compared it to the public stance of former Governor Gray Davis. in the months leading up to his 2003 recall election.
A Los Angeles Times poll published on March 9 of that year found that 27% of Californians approved of Davis’ professional performance and 64% disapproved of it.
“Newsom has never had majority disapproval,” Newman said.
But Rescue California, one of the organizations backing the recall effort, also found what it saw as positive results for its side in the poll – namely that 42% of independent voters and 38% of Latinos polled had declared to support a recall.
“This 42% is good news for me,” said Anne Hyde Dunsmore, spokesperson for Rescue California. “This is exactly what we are looking for.”
Dunsmore said the numbers were promising given the campaign to remove Newsom hadn’t really started advertising and hitting him on his record, citing jobless benefits, early jail releases due to COVID- 19 and the governor’s children attending private school in person while many Californians struggled with virtual learning, among other criticisms.
“These are the kinds of things that haven’t even started to peak yet,” she said.
It remains to be seen whether these issues will be at the heart of California voters’ concerns this fall, when a recall election would likely take place if she qualified.
The poll came as more Californians got vaccinated and schools began to reopen – crucial aspects of a return to some level of normalcy in the state and Newsom’s ability to postpone a recall .
The survey found that 79% of likely voters believe the worst of the pandemic in the United States is behind us, up 20 percentage points from January. About 45% of likely voters said the state was doing an excellent or a good job distributing the vaccine, compared with 32% who said it was fair and 20% who said poor. The number of those who gave the state positive ratings on vaccine distribution has increased by 17 percentage points since January, according to PPIC.
The governor, who will appear at an event with First Lady Jill Biden in Delano on Wednesday, continued to tout the progress in California, where 17.6 million vaccines have been administered to date, and openly criticizes the recall during the stops in the state. Newsom’s Democratic allies at the national and state levels have also mobilized to vocally oppose the recall.
Asked last week whether the recall is supported by Republicans and some Democrats, Newsom repeated his campaign’s message that the recall’s roots go back to right-wing groups, but also acknowledged that he understands the concerns of other.
“There are people who signed that [recall petition], that I have a deep respect and deep empathy for this have been frustrated, ”Newsom said. “This year has been difficult for all of us.”
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