The recall election seeking to remove California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will take place on September 14, 2021. Here is an election preview to get you up to speed on this recall election.
Forty-six candidates, including nine Democrats and 24 Republicans, are running in the election. The candidates to receive the most media attention and perform best in polls so far are YouTuber Kevin Paffrath (D), 2018 gubernatorial candidate John Cox (R), radio host Larry Elder (R), former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer (R), California State Board of Equalization member Ted Gaines (R), former Olympian and television personality Caitlyn Jenner (R), and Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R).
The key issues that drove the recall.
The are various reasons why California voters prompted the recall election, but here is a shortlist of the major concerns. Here is a more pro-Newsom view of his performance.
- Gavin Newsom’s Employment Development Department has sent over $30 billion in fraudulent checks to prison inmates and other criminals while forcing hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Californians to wait for months for money they are owed.
- After ordering Californians to stay home and avoid social gatherings, Gavin Newsom arrogantly ignored his own edicts by dining with lobbyists at the French Laundry restaurant while not wearing a mask or social distancing.
- As Governor, Gavin Newsom has given millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to businesses that pay his wife a six-figure salary, a practice that government watchdogs called a clear conflict of interest.
- Even now, after the CDC has lifted all COVID-19 restrictions, Gavin Newsom has refused to give up the emergency executive powers he invoked during the pandemic, allowing him to continue awarding no-bid multi-million dollar contracts to his biggest campaign donors.
- Crime is spiking in California, yet Gavin Newsom ordered the early release of 20 thousand prison inmates and is giving another 76 thousand the chance to leave prison before serving their full terms.
- Gavin Newsom cut 150 million dollars from the state’s fire protection budget and misled the public about his fire protection record, exaggerating by over 690% the number of acres protected under his own program and leaving over 78,000 acres vulnerable to devastating fires.
- While millions of water customers are facing severe restrictions on their personal water usage, Gavin Newsom’s biggest campaign donor continues to use 120 billion gallons a year – enough to supply all of the residents of Los Angeles and San Francisco for an entire year.
- Gavin Newsom allowed teacher’s unions, not science, to dictate when schools could reopen and whether students will be forced to get vaccinated or wear masks in the classroom this fall.
- While Gavin Newsom continues to claim that homelessness is his top priority, the problem has gotten much worse since he has been in office, and he now wants to spend another $12 billion on new programs and says it will take five more years to make a dent in homelessness.
- Due to high taxes and fees, Californians pay over $1.20 more than the national average for a gallon of gas, but Gavin Newsom refused to stop or delay another gas tax increase on July 1.
- Gavin Newsom agreed to a secretive, nearly one-billion-dollar state contract to produce face masks with a politically connected Chinese company. Ahead of the company had donated tens of thousands of dollars to Newsom’s campaign. Without the legislature knowing about it the company was wired half a million dollars.
- Governor Newsom ordered ten-percent pay cuts for state workers because of the pandemic. Newsom promised to reduce his own pay but broke his promise and continued to collect his full monthly salary.
- Companies, where Governor Newsom has an ownership interest, received millions of dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program. One of the companies is a winery that received nearly one million dollars to protect only 14 jobs. This is more than SEVEN times the average small business loan to other California companies with a similar number of workers.
Same ole Democrat tactics are in play.
Like a replay of the 2020 presidential election, mail-in ballots blindly sent to voters with little voter identification may determine the results. Already some claims are being made.
Hundreds of recall ballots, drugs, and a loaded gun were found last week in a vehicle where a felon was passed out inside, authorities said. During the investigation, officers learned the suspect was a felon and had Xanax pills in his possession. Police said a further investigation found thousands of pieces of mail, including over 300 ballots for the upcoming recall election of embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom, inside the vehicle.
There have been more reports of election integrity issues. SoCal residents report having issues with their recall ballots – see here. Michael Sedillo of Riverside received five ballots and some voting guides in his mailbox. One for him and four other strangers. Mail-in voting ballot box stuffing?
On cue, Democrat mainstream media labels any charges of election integrity issues as “fake news” – see here and here on FactCheck tries.
Democrats are pulling out all the stops to save Newsom with racially charged rhetoric and violent protests. This woman threw at least one egg towards the black gubernatorial challenger to Gavin Newsom while verbally assaulting Elder and his staff.
The woman’s cohorts then became physically aggressive – shoving Elder’s staff, slapping them, and hitting them with more eggs – before one begins ranting, “Democrats control everything!” Watch below.
And the CNN narrative leads with?
San Leandro, California (CNN) California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been doing everything he can to persuade women to vote “no” on the Republican effort to oust him in Tuesday’s recall election, and in Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday, he got his most high-profile surrogate to date to help deliver that message.The former California senator, who remains enormously popular among Democratic women and progressive voters of color, argued that the national consequences of this election could be huge if Newsom is replaced by a Republican.
Los Angeles (CNN) Republican candidate Larry Elder told reporters on Wednesday that he believes “there might very well be shenanigans” in the election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, continuing the baseless GOP effort to undermine elections by suggesting wrongdoing.
The Democrat mainstream has been pulling hard for Newsom and throwing smears at Larry Elder. Breitbart News has reported on the onslaught of smear tactics from the media, the Democrat Party, and the establishment of Republican candidates trying to weaken Elders’ chances in the polls. The attacks being thrown at Elder, a Republican with a large radio audience, were narrowed down to four different categories: race, gender, radical views, and finances.
Here is a graphic that explains the general electoral process for the recall (see more here).
Most of the voting will be done by mail. In fact, every registered voter was sent a ballot in the mail. That could give Democrats an advantage since 22 million ballots have been mailed out. Early returns are coming more from Democrats, but they outnumber Republicans 2-1 in the state, and Republicans may be waiting to vote on Election Day. Forty-six candidates, including nine Democrats and 24 Republicans, are running in the election. Here is the final list of the candidates.
What do the polls say?
Here is a summary from FiveThirtyEight, with more detail here.
Here is a list of some other polls – see more detail here.
| GAVIN NEWSOM RECALL, 2021: RECALL QUESTION POLLS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll | Date | Yes, Recall | No, Don’t Recall | Undecided | Margin Of Error | Sample Size | Sponsor |
| YouGov | August 27-September 1, 2021 | 44% | 56% | N/A[16] | ± 2.8 | 2,043 | N/A |
| Public Policy Institute of California | August 20-29, 2021 | 39% | 58% | N/A[17] | ± 3.4 | 1,706 | N/A |
| The Trafalgar Group | August 26-29, 2021 | 44% | 52% | 4% | ± 3.0 | 1,088 | N/A |
| SurveyUSA | August 26-28, 2021 | 43% | 51% | 6% | ± 4.4 | 816 | N/A |
| Change Research | August 22-25, 2021 | 42% | 57% | 1% | ± 3.7 | 782 | N/A |
| CBS News/YouGov | August 6-12, 2021 | 48% | 52% | 0% | ± 4.0 | 1,856 | N/A |
| SurveyUSA** | August 2-4, 2021 | 51% | 40% | 9% | ± 5.0 | 613 | N/A |
| Inside California Politics / Emerson College | July 30-August 1, 2021 | 46% | 48% | 6% | ± 3.0 | 1,000 | N/A |
| Core Decision Analytics | July 27-29, 2021 | 39% | 48% | 12% | ± 3.5 | 804 | N/A |
| Berkeley IGS | July 18-24, 2021 | 47% | 50% | 3% | ± 2.0 | 5,795 | N/A |
| Inside California Politics / Emerson College | July 19-20, 2021 | 43% | 48% | 9% | ± 2.9 | 1,085 | N/A |
| Public Policy Institute of California | May 9–18, 2021 | 40% | 57% | 3% | ± 3.2 | 1,705 | N/A |
| Berkeley IGS | April 29-May 5, 2021 | 36% | 49% | 15% | ± 2.0 | 10,289 | N/A |
| SurveyUSA | April 30-May 2, 2021 | 36% | 47% | 17% | ± 5.3 | 642 | N/A |
| Public Policy Institute of California | March 14-23, 2021 | 40% | 56% | 5% | ± 3.3 | 1,706 | N/A |
| Probolsky Research | March 16-19, 2021 | 40% | 46% | 14% | ± 3.3 | 900 | N/A |
| Emerson Polling[18] | March 12-14, 2021 | 38% | 42% | 14% | ± 3.0 | 1,045 | N/A |
| WPA Intelligence | Feb. 12-14, 2021 | 47% | 43% | 10% | ± 3.9 | 645 | Kevin Faulconer |
| Berkeley IGS | Jan. 23-29, 2021 | 36% | 45% | 19% | ± 2.0 | 10,357 | N/A |
Should Newsome be recalled, Elder seems to be the favorite to replace Newsom, though those voters indicating “other” is substantial.
| GAVIN NEWSOM RECALL, 2021: CANDIDATE POLLS | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll | Date | Cox | Elder | Faulconer | Jenner | Kiley | Paffrath | Other | Undecided | Margin Of Error |
| YouGov | August 27-September 1, 2021 | 4% | 20% | 4% | 1% | 2% | 6% | 63%[19] | N/A[20] | ± 2.8 |
| Public Policy Institute of California | August 20-29, 2021 | 3% | 26% | 5% | 1% | 1% | N/A[21] | 39%[22] | 24% | ± 3.4 |
| The Trafalgar Group | August 26-29, 2021 | 4% | 29% | 4% | 1% | N/A[23] | 22% | 9% | 30% | ± 3.0 |
Recall predictions.
More than five million Californians have cast their ballots in this September’s special Gubernatorial Recall Election, accounting for 23% of eligible voters, according to political data analysts.
So far, data analysts say older, white, affluent Californians have cast their ballots in bigger numbers. “It turns out Gavin Newsom’s biggest supporters seem to be older, white, Democrats living in affluent areas, living in suburban areas, in particular,” said Paul Westcott of L2, a voter mapping and demographics firm. “We’ve seen a lot of that, whereas these other core Democratic groups, at least for now, haven’t shown up yet.”
Polls are just polls – often, they are wrong, though right now they favor Newsom. The passion is high for the proponents for the Newsom recall. However, the Democratic media machine and election integrity issues may rule in the end.
