Voters would answer two questions: Mr. Newsom must be revoked and, if the call is approved, who should complete his remaining year as governor.
For now, his fellow Democrats have closed the ranks around Newsom, flanking him in appearances and lavishly praising his way of dealing with the pandemic. The Biden government also came to the aid of the governor, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki, emphasizing this month that President Biden “clearly opposes any effort” to remove the governor.
The governor himself avoided the word “R”. “I’m focused on the vaccine issue,” he recently told reporters who asked about the recall effort. The Newsom team, however, noted that recall attempts are not uncommon in California: petitions for dismissal have been filed against all governors in the past 61 years.
Only one recall was successful – in 2003, when post-9/11 fears and blackouts from energy deregulation helped Republicans convince voters to fire Gray Davis and hire Arnold Schwarzenegger, who later faced his own blitz of attempts recall.
Dan Newman, a political adviser to Newsom, pointed out that after the 2003 petition qualified for the vote, 135 candidates ran, including Arianna Huffington, former child star Gary Coleman and Mary Carey, then a porn actress. “Some people estimate that we could have 10 times more candidates than in 2003,” he said, noting that such a special election would cost about $ 100 million.
Three Republicans – Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego; conservative activist Mike Cernovich; and John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018 – announced plans to challenge the governor, and Richard Grenell, who was acting chief of intelligence for former President Donald J. Trump, does not rule this out in a recent appearance on Newsmax.
But the recall effort also generated widespread bipartisan malaise, as the virus claimed about 50,000 lives in the state. During the pandemic, Californians saw their governor not only as their state’s fortunate son at the top of their game, as he was when he was elected, but also as a pale, humane guy who tries to remain calm in a live broadcast.