Once the recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom qualified for the ballot, Democrats who control statewide offices had a choice.
They could delay the vote or speed it along. They chose to set an early recall election date, and changed state law in order to do so in late June, reasoning that things were looking up as the state re-opened and COVID-19 rates declined.
Setting the date on Sept. 14 at the time appeared likely to coincide with the reopening of schools while avoiding the peak of California’s wildfire season.
With ballots arriving and the election just three weeks away, however, Californians have plenty of reasons to be unhappy.
Less than a month before California’s gubernatorial recall election, Newsom faces multiple crises.
Wildfires burn. Utilities warn against too much electricity use. Drought devastates California farms. Hospital ICUS hold largely unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. Even those who got vaccines now contemplate the prospect of a third shot.
And Democratic voters preoccupied with other issues are just waking up to the possibility that their party’s governor could be replaced by October.
“It’s hard to pick one (crisis),” said Jessica A. Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University located in Los Angeles. “There’s just this perfect storm of low turnout, a special election, a lot of enthusiasm to recall him and virus numbers that we’re not really thrilled about.”
Climbing COVID-19 cases
Levinson said Newsom’s biggest challenge is the state’s struggle to control the delta variant’s spread throughout California.
In the last few weeks, COVID-19 cases began to increase across the state, particularly among the unvaccinated, prompting many county health officials to mandate masks again.
A poll released in late July showed the governor holding a slim majority of support among likely California voters. Just as governor, compared to 47% of those who said they would vote to recall him, according to a poll released by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.
It’s a setback, according to Levinson, that wasn’t anticipated when Newsom in May announced the state’s June re-opening plans.
“I think he’s under water because ... the pandemic is not over,” she said.
School re-openings
School re-openings have also become more controversial than they were in June. In July, Newsom’s Department of Public Health mandated masks for public school students throughout the state. That announcement drew ire from recall supporters, who criticized the governor for issuing COVID-19 restrictions.
That was followed by a mandate requiring public school teachers to get vaccinated or be subject to weekly COVID-19 testing. The decision was met with approval from the California Teachers Association, the largest teachers union in the state.
Newsom’s campaign is banking on polling that shows more public support for specific mandates, such as for school employees and health care workers, than for the general public.
A nationwide Axios-Ipsos poll conducted in August found that 92% of Democrats supported mask mandates in schools, compared to 44% of Republicans. Overall, 69% of U.S. adults support mask mandates in schools, according to the poll.
Wildfires
An unprecedented heat wave hitting western states over the summer pushed temperatures in California to record highs.
Wildfires have burned through hundreds of thousands of acres throughout the state. The fires have destroyed structures, displaced residents and created unsafe air quality conditions for many Californians.
Mindy Romero, the founder and director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California, said Democrats decided to hold the recall election in September in anticipation that wildfire season would peak in the fall.
“What’s happened is that we had an earlier wildfire season than we should have,” she said. “A horrific one.”
Low turnout, enthusiasm among Democrats
Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College in New York City, said moving the election up to September was a “huge mistake” for the Newsom administration.
Instead, he said, the governor’s team could have taken advantage of extra time to mobilize supportive voters and increase fundraising efforts.
Spivak, who studies recall elections, said mobilizing voters to participate is always a problem. The Berkeley poll found that 90% of Republicans expressed a high interest in recall voting, for example, compared to 60% of Democrats who expressed similar interest.
“He’s got to make sure his voters come out,” Spivak said. “And that’s a challenge in recalls.”
Andrew Acosta, a Democratic consultant, said it remains to be seen whether or not Democrats should have moved up the recall election date.
“There’s not just going to be an automatic massive increase in voter turnout in November because it’s in November. People get into the race when they get into the race and if they get excited about it they vote. If they don’t – they don’t,” he said.
Regardless, Newsom is navigating unpredictable terrain with the election so close and voting already under way, Romero said.
“If you’re hearing a lot of negative and concerning things on the news, I think that can affect how some voters feel about their state and the state of things,” Romero said. “It’s definitely not a positive for Newsom. How much it will impact the recall in the end, I’m not sure.”
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