Halfway through his first term, the Democratic governor of the nation’s most populous state is struggling to control a pandemic that has affected the southern half of California since Thanksgiving. The pandemic gave Republicans, long marginalized in this heavily democratic state, a rare opportunity to hurt it. And Newsom is working to keep the state – and its own political future – intact.
“People are really upset,” said Ted Costa, the anti-tax crusader who was the original proponent of Davis’s recall. He signed Newsom’s recall papers last week in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Thousand Oaks. “Things can get hot quickly and I don’t know if Newsom understands what happens when a wave of violence occurs.”
For Newsom, an ambitious democrat with a national profile, the extent of the problem is unclear. The last Republican to win an election for governor in California was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that was almost 15 years ago. When Newsom won the government in 2018, it took the state by almost 24 percentage points. Its public approval rating last year was 60%.
However, the pandemic has worsened in recent weeks. And the frame of reference through which Californians see Newsom is about to change dramatically when Joe Biden replaces Donald Trump at the White House. No longer benefiting from a reliable defense in Washington, the public approval bar for Newsom – and for Democratic governors across the country – is likely to be increased.
“For the past two years, during Newsom’s term, people have said that the nation is going in the wrong direction and that the state, in comparison to the nation, is going in the right direction,” said Mark Baldassare, a veteran researcher and president of the California Institute of Public Policy. Now, without a Republican president to judge Newsom, he said, “It certainly changes that point of contrast.”
Newsom tackled the virus outbreak and its economic consequences with a series of proposals aimed at helping the most vulnerable Californians and bringing students back to classrooms. Last month, he proposed a $ 2 billion effort to reopen elementary schools for the state’s youngest students, with additional protective equipment and tests. Earlier last week, Newsom proposed to give low-income workers in the state $ 600 “quick money” grants. And in a blessing for their political fortunes, the state budget, despite dire predictions, is so healthy that Newsom released a budget proposal on Friday that calls for record spending and adds billions of dollars to state reserve accounts.
But good news is rare in California, and Newsom has not gone without errors. He came for a beating after attending a dinner for a top political advisor at the upscale restaurant The French Laundry – a problem not only because Newsom enjoyed his evening but he was discouraging Californians from gathering for the holidays, but because the place it was so elegant. Californians who might otherwise have stopped making fun of him because of that episode weeks ago, had only more cause for frustration amid worsening pandemic conditions.
“In the city of Los Angeles and in our county, Covid-19 is now everywhere and infecting more people than ever,” said the city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, at a news conference on Thursday night.
Garcetti, a Democrat who suffered public pressure similar to that faced by Newsom, blamed the federal government – not the state – for delays in the distribution of vaccines. But Newsom is facing criticism from others for being too slow in distributing the Covid-19 vaccine, something the federal government has left for the states.
“I don’t think Californians can understand why we have hundreds of thousands of doses there and they are not being administered, ” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who assisted with Newsom’s 2010 government campaign and was a senior adviser to Davis. “California has gone through almost 10 months of hell and now there is potentially a light at the end of the tunnel with these vaccines – but it does no good if they are not administered.”
“You need to put these vaccines in people’s arms,” he said.
Like other Democrats, Newsom blamed the Trump administration for the slow launch of the vaccine, joining Democratic governors from seven other states last week to pressure federal health officials to release more doses. And in the new administration in Washington, Newsom will have some help. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who this month will take over as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, said in an interview that he plans to make “Covid, Covid, Covid” his top priority – and will work immediately to get Newsom any help he needs.
At the federal level, Padilla said: “We know that vaccines have been approved, but we are still nowhere near where we need to be in terms of production volume.”
For Newsom’s political goals, the sooner the better. For years, Republicans’ messages about taxes, regulations and social issues have fallen apart in government policy here, a reflection of California’s overwhelmingly democratic constituency. But the coronavirus came as a bonanza for Newsom’s critics, offering an opening for anti-Newsom attacks that may resonate beyond the Republican Party base.
“In the midst of this pandemic, with so many people suffering and now without work, … we have 500,000 Californians who cannot receive unemployment insurance,” said former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, who launched an exploratory governor committee this week. . “How many parents are frustrated when they look to see that most private schools are up and running and we still can’t safely reopen our public schools? This is unacceptable. “
He and other Republicans have rated Newsom as aimless about the pandemic – a narrative that has been aided by rising cases, despite restrictions. “Look, all we heard – year-round – from Gavin Newsom was that as soon as we get the vaccine, all the problems will be resolved, the blockages will end and we can get back to normal life here in California,” said Jennifer Kerns , a conservative talk show host and former Republican Party spokesman. “And that was not the case.”
Joe Rodota, a former Republican strategist who left the party due to Trump’s influence and who once served as deputy chief of staff to former governor Pete Wilson, said: “It’s all fallen apart.”
Against this background, the pressure to revoke Newsom is gaining momentum. Although recall efforts are routinely made against governors and rarely qualify for the vote, supporters of the anti-Newsom effort said on Tuesday that they had exceeded 1 million signatures – about two-thirds of the number needed to force an election later this year. year – partly requesting mail subscriptions from Republicans and independent voters. The effort attracted a $ 500,000 donation recently from an Orange County donor who opposed Newsom’s orders that limited religious meetings due to the coronavirus.
Dave Gilliard, the Republican strategist who helped orchestrate Davis’s 2003 recall and is advising Newsom’s recall effort, estimated the chances of qualifying for the vote at around 80 to 85 percent.
“It has really skyrocketed in the past two months,” he said, attributing the increase to what he called “an increase in French laundry.”
Newsom’s advisers are paying close attention to the recall effort, conducting interviews and classifying the proponents of the recall as “pro-Trump extremists”. Dan Newman, Newsom’s top political advisor, said that “the recall effort is mainly fueled by the same hatred, misinformation and lack of respect for democracy that has led domestic terrorists to invade the Capitol.”
Tied to Faulconer and John Cox, the Republican defeated by Newsom in 2018, Newman said: “Trump’s acolytes in California, like Kevin Faulconer and John Cox are marching in sync with the president, blindly following his example by refusing to accept and respect the will of the voters. ”
But Newsom’s advisers are not advertising or giving press conferences, particularly reluctant to air an initiative that they believe is unlikely to qualify without a significant injection of additional money. The advocates of the recall must collect about 1.5 million signatures by March; ensuring that they have enough valid signatures means that they will likely need to collect much more than that number.
And if the recall initiative qualifies for the vote, actually recalling Newsom will be a much more difficult task. Republicans make up less than a quarter of California’s electorate. And at the time of any revocation election, which will only take place months after the signatures are sent, the mood of voters – then potentially vaccinated – can improve dramatically.
For now, Davis said he expects Newsom to focus heavily on promoting the vaccine, which he said should “give people a sense that this pandemic will end”. And overall, given the challenges of the pandemic, Davis said Newsom “did a remarkable job”.
“There is a reason why their public approval ratings are still in the mid-1950s,” said Davis. “He is completely transparent. He explains why he is going to do something. He tells you if it was accomplished and, if not, why not. And I think there is an endearing quality to it that voters like ”.