Newsom still deflects questions about the opposition’s effort, saying it is exclusively focused on vaccinating Californians and reducing the spread of Covid-19. He vehemently denied that his abrupt decision to reverse orders to stay at home last month was an attempt to contain voters’ frustration. And he seems determined to avoid legitimizing the effort by recognizing it.
But California Democrats and their political supporters are gearing up for a campaign, although the organizers of the recall deliver hundreds of thousands of signatures. State lawmakers are proclaiming their support for Newsom, seeking to contain any sign of disunity. Interest groups and donors who would be called upon to fund a recall defense are growing quietly, with a union launching the first public counteroffensive.
“Are we getting ready to oppose this? Sure, ”said Joe Cotchett, a longtime ally and Newsom donor.
Nearly 18 years ago, the only California governor recall drew 135 candidates, including several B-list celebrities and an A-lister: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took office with the Republican promise to clean up the state government. With only two state elections in the United States this year – disputes for governors in Virginia and New Jersey – another California recall would likely become the biggest political event of 2021.
Placing the recall on the ballot is the first withdrawal; voters would then have to decide in a special election whether to remove Newsom and, at the same time, which candidate they would prefer.
The recall may not yet qualify. The deadline for certification is March 17, and the campaign is still operating on a tight budget for campaign standards across the state, relying on volunteers and some paid couriers to collect the 1.5 million valid subscriptions they need. Proponents claim that they have 1.3 million signatures in total, still far from the nearly 2 million they will likely need to compensate for invalid signatories.
Still, the campaign had a surprisingly high rate of valid subscriptions in the latest state report through early January, hovering around 85%. California county registrars have verified nearly 600,000 signatures so far.
“This public report shows a very high validity rate, but its ultimate success depends on a few things: what happens to their response rate and what happens to their validity rates as they need to expand their audience beyond the anti-Public from Newsom? ”Said Ned Wigglesworth, a consultant who is not affiliated with the campaign. “This huge flag is, while they go through the voter’s file, did they get that fruit at their fingertips?”
Some supporters are not waiting to see. The National Health Workers Union launched an effort to dissuade people from signing the recall, including testimonials from hospital staff about how a Newsom recall would harm them, after “it became clear that it could be qualified and people wanted to do something to respect, ”said union president Sal Rosselli.
“We cannot risk opening the door to a new government that would be much less prepared to vaccinate people and much less committed to protecting health,” said Rosselli, adding that he had talked to other union leaders and hoped to win him over “Some friends that could make significant contributions. ”
Two of the state’s most respected polls this week showed that Newsom’s support fell after the state’s worst pandemic period, during which hospitals were overbooked and the state exceeded 40,000 Covid-19 deaths. The Berkeley Institute for Government Studies poll painted a worse picture for Newsom, showing that his approval rating fell from two-thirds in September to 46 percent now among all registered voters. Newsom can take comfort in the poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, which showed it with 52% support among likely voters; it is a drop from the 59 percent he had in November, but still slightly higher than his pre-pandemic numbers.
Increasing voter dissatisfaction may lead to qualification of the recall, but that does not mean it will be approved. Democrats have a 46% to 24% registration advantage over Republicans in California, and the IGS poll shows that a plurality of 45% said they would vote to retain Newsom, compared with 36% who support his removal.
The day after these polls highlighted Newsom’s precarious situation, the governor appeared on Wednesday at a news conference at which Bay Area allies praised his management of the coronavirus. “I speak with mayors across the country, and I can’t say how lucky we are in California to have Gavin Newsom as governor,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, introducing him.
As the allies unite in defense of Newsom, they will likely remind voters in this overwhelmingly democratic state that the recall was launched by conservatives and Republicans who supported President Donald Trump – and that the two main Republican opponents supported the president who was deeply unpopular in state. However, even in California, they cannot overstate their defense of Newsom; Democratic State President Rusty Hicks was heavily criticized last month when he declared the legal repeal effort a “coup”, trying to draw a parallel between the signature campaign and the siege of the United States Capitol.
Unlike a run for normal governor, recalls do not limit campaign contributions. This means that Newsom could take advantage of the financial strength of its supporters, including the state’s powerful organized union movement. California Labor Federation spokesman Steve Smith said that labor leaders were discussing contingency plans to protect a “Democratic governor who did many good things for workers”.
“It may not qualify, but we will always be thinking about the future,” said Smith, and although he said the groups had not specifically discussed funding, “obviously, in any campaign, you are talking about resource allocation.”
But an effort to gather that support can generate persistent tensions with labor officials who still teem over what they see as Newsom’s uneven history, including vetoing a job security bill and giving sympathetic ears to companies like Uber in a confrontation. on the classification of workers. A union official told the Los Angeles Times that Newsom was “putting us to death” after expelling essential food workers from an upper layer of vaccines.
Teachers’ unions, an indispensable political force for California’s Democrats, are also rejecting Newsom’s efforts to reopen schools. After the governor said that union demands would effectively mean that classrooms would remain empty, the California Teachers’ Association replied that its insistence on vaccines as a prerequisite “was not a new or irrational notion”.
Some black women remain angry at Newsom for not having appointed a black woman to replace Vice President Kamala Harris, whose departure from the Senate means that the chamber has no African American women. “Newsom and the Party had better hope that black women don’t decide to teach them both a lesson and sign the recall or stay out if he gets to the polls,” Jasmyne Cannick, a Los Angeles political strategist and Democratic Party delegate, said in an email.
And the governor’s effort to build a united front of elected Democrats found the same turbulence as the coronavirus that sparked the recall effort. Late last year, Newsom called state legislators to make sure they protected him. Several elected officials joined a news conference in January organized in part by the Newsom team who denounced the recall as a far-right project. But several Democratic lawmakers publicly attacked Newsom’s decision to reopen last week, saying they were taken by surprise and questioning the justification.
Still, some of these lawmakers have acted to quickly moderate their criticism, signaling that they see the party’s unity replacing their complaints with the governor. After tweeting her frustration, Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Los Angeles) emphasized that she supports Newsom and is opposed to the recall, telling POLITICO in a text message that she was “dismayed that people seem to think my comments were some kind of accusation from the governor or his work. “
“I think the Democratic Party will continue to support him a lot,” said state senator Steve Glazer, who has been more vocal than many Democrats in questioning Newsom’s coronavirus decisions for not going far enough to protect residents. “Nobody in the Democratic Party will be happy with any of the current Republican candidates in their place.”
In addition to these Republican candidates – a list that so far includes former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and 2018’s Newsom opponent, businessman John Cox – the recall goes for everyone heightens the threat of a viable Democrat to step in to challenge Newsom if he is perceived as vulnerable. It happened in 2003, when Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante presented himself as an alternative to Governor Gray Davis. Bustamante’s move failed and his political career collapsed – a lesson not lost on California’s current crop of Democrats.