It took an actor, a doctor, a former corrections officer, a store clerk and a conservative radio megaphone (among others) pursuing control of the fifth-largest economy on earth to convince the citizens of the biggest American state that “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
On that basis, Gavin Newsom survived an effort to recall him from the governership of California by a wide margin, with Californians voting “no” (to retain him in office) by almost 2-1, with mail-in votes giving him an early commanding lead. Newsom escaped recall thanks to a variety of unforced errors by the Republican Party that has fiercely opposed him since he took office.
More specifically, Newsom beat back this bid to oust him mostly for four reasons:
Newsom’s opponents misread the electorate
Right-wing radio mouthpiece Larry Elder, Newsom’s leading Republican challenger, punctuated his own campaign with various nods and bows to Trumpian politics and style. Elder – under fire for various misogynist comments -- came out swinging against COVID mask mandates, immigration toleration, and even a minimum wage. With policies and behavior like that, Elder’s campaign was an oppo research gold mine ripe for exploitation. Thus, Elder had an uphill climb in decidedly liberal California right from the start.
Elder’s misreading of the state and its voters had company. The 45 other people who came out against Newsom – a Whitman’s sampler of long shots and dreamers, about half of them Republican – really had no sharp, cohesive message to bring against Newsom beyond “Newsom needs to be replaced.” That hollow rationale, that generalized indictment happened because the candidates misread the electorate, and by extension, the need for their own candidacies as a reason for citizens to vote for them. There was never a there there.
And then consider California voter registrations. Since the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, who lost to Arnold Schwarzenegger, registration of Republican voters has increased by about 20,000. In that same time, registration of Democratic voters swelled by more than 3 million. It all led to Tuesday’s election waiting-game-that wasn’t, an event veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy, on MSNBC, likened to “a play-by-play at a Globetrotters game.”
His opponents misread the depth of citizen discontent
Extending from that first matter, not knowing what their electorate was, Newsom’s opponents misinterpreted how dissatisfied those citizens were in the first place. Republicans in general were eager to blame Newsom for a parade of horribles, from worsening homelessness to immigration challenges on the border to the precarious economy borne of the COVID pandemic.
Those same Republicans didn’t make critical distinctions, among them the fact that many of those calamities were facts of life well before Newsom took office in 2017, and Newsom’s response to the pandemic was really no more slow-footed than that of any other governor– and faster and more nimble than many of them. In fact, a CBS News exit survey of voters found that, for those opposing the recall, 42 percent said controlling COVID-19 was the top issue that got them to the polls – topping crime, homelessness and the economy. For a die-hard anti-vaxxer like Elder, it wasn’t a good look at all.
It’s hard to mount a serious campaign for any office and win if you don’t have the pulse of the citizens, a deep feel for what’s got people pissed off or concerned. Voters thought Newsom got that. Elder and the other Recall Yes crowd never did.
Whatever got the voters of California upset could have been wildfires or immigration, COVID or crime. Whatever it really was, it sure as hell wasn’t a private dinner at The French Laundry.
Newsom’s opponents overestimated the value of their maximum leader
In the run-up to the recall vote, it was clear the Republican Party hoped that, somehow, former presidential asterisk Donald Trump might impart his malign magic and the powers of the presidency to tip the scales in their favor. But in the first major state election since Joe Biden assumed the U.S. presidency in January, California voters were immune to the ex-president’s dark charms and innuendo. Much like they were in the 2020 presidential election.
A big field of candidates didn’t help the Recall Yes cause; Trump couldn’t bring a focus to any one of the hopefuls, and might have done more harm than good, even if he had any real traction in the state. That may explain why Trump was a campaign no-show. The candidates didn’t ask him. Most of them knew they were doomed to lose anyway; they didn’t need any help being defeated from an already defeated president. The outcome of the vote proved that from the minute the polls closed on Tuesday night.
They misinterpreted the nature of the election itself
Republicans hoped that a win by Elder or any of the other candidates might create an atmosphere that could be superimposable on the country as a whole in 2022 and beyond. But the recall election wasn’t a nationalizable event, or a blueprint for other Republican candidates running in the future.
Never mind the state-specific reasons for a recall election, reasons that can’t be duplicated somewhere else. County by county, support for the GOP-led recall trailed or barely matched the corresponding granular results for Trump in the 2020 national election. In some counties the recall vote was slightly higher, but for most, there was precious little statistical departure from the trouncing Trump sustained statewide in 2020. Very little here for the Republican Party to replicate on a national level.
It’s true, national trends often originate in California, and there are insights to be gained from watching what’s done here. But the state’s distinctive way of political business isn’t per se a trend that’s exportable across the country. Like the Golden State itself, it’s a singular phenomenon without any comparable in the national electorate, and not readily subject to political xerography. Just like Texas is. Or Massachusetts. Or Florida.
And that fact’s as crucial for Democrats to remember as it is for Republicans. Dems shouldn’t look on the recall election results as a potential template for the rest of the nation. The things that are truly transferable from this election – the durability of voter enthusiasm, the power of mail-in voting, the diversity of the electorate – are already uniformly national. Or they will be.