SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For the past year, Orinn Heatlie has been leading hundreds of Californians in an effort to unseat Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Now, members of the recall committee say they have enough signatures to trigger an election, at which point anyone can put their name on the ballot. Even though several Republicans have already voiced their intentions to run, the recall committee isn't able to endorse a candidate until it files the proper paperwork.
Even if they could endorse someone right now, however, it's not clear they would.
"When the right candidate emerges, we will choose to endorse that person," recall leader Orinn Heatlie told reporters gathered in a Hyatt conference room in downtown Sacramento on Sunday.
But has the right candidate emerged?
"No comment," Heatlie said.
The recall campaign looks set to clear the first big hurdle: getting enough signatures to qualify for an election. But even if state officials give the all-clear for a recall election, the next step in unseating the governor involves a much trickier process: finding an opponent to Newsom that disgruntled Californians will rally behind.
In the 2003 recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, that candidate was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who considered running as an independent but ultimately ran as a Republican and won the endorsement of the board of the California Republican Party. Even though Schwarzenegger had the star power and name recognition to bolster his campaign, a party endorsement gave him the support and resources to eventually land in the governor's office.
A GOP endorsement in the Newsom recall could do the same.
"You can run a lot of things through the party, just like the governor is going to run a lot of things through the Democratic Party and through the unions," said Duf Sundheim, who chaired the California GOP at the time the board endorsed Schwarzenegger. "That would be an incredible resource to anyone who was able to achieve that endorsement."
The current California GOP leadership has given little indication as to who or how they'll endorse someone in a recall. For the past several months, the party has been actively pushing Californians to sign the recall petition, and even earned the trust of the national Republican Party, which donated $250,000 to California Republicans with the intention of launching a voter outreach campaign.
When asked if the party plans to endorse a recall candidate, spokesman Hector Barajas said "at this point we have plans," but didn't provide any information about a timeline or process.
A recall endorsement has already become somewhat of a contentious issue within the party. At the organizing convention earlier this year, tempers flared over a proposed amendment to party endorsement rules that some said was an effort to override the views of grassroots members.
The amendment was ultimately pulled by chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson. Betsy Mahan, the delegate who introduced the amendment and who also leads Sacramento County Republicans, maintains there was nothing nefarious about the proposed change. The intention, Mahan said, was to ensure the party had the ability to endorse someone in a recall.
"I still believe that an endorsement from the CAGOP will be crucial to our success in removing Gavin Newsom from office," Mahan told The Bee in a statement.
Recall organizers have made a clear effort to delineate the recall from partisan politics, insisting the campaign is a bipartisan movement, with more than 30% of signatures coming from non-Republicans, according to internal analyses. The campaign is largely volunteer-run, with only two employees on the payroll, organizers say. Some are concerned that the wrong pick by California Republican Party leaders could strip the recall of its grassroots qualities.
"An endorsement should only occur if there is a true groundswell of support at the grassroots level," said Carl DeMaio, a San Diego Republican and chairman of the conservative organization Reform California. "I absolutely believe we can achieve that. But it takes a candidate who's willing to respect the grassroots who made the recall possible. And I don't see a whole lot of attention being paid to the grassroots."
DeMaio said he wants the party to adopt a caucus model for choosing a recall candidate, where those who collected recall signatures can attend events, hear from candidates, and cast votes in a straw poll for who should be endorsed.
"If they don't do the input from the grassroots, I believe it will damage whoever gets the endorsement," DeMaio added.
The big challengers at the moment are former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and John Cox, the businessman who ran and lost to Newsom in 2018. A swath of lesser-known candidates have also launched campaigns for the 2022 gubenatorial race, including Grover Coltharp, a Roseville businessman who says he wants to be "that guy" to replace Newsom in a recall.
One looming question mark in the recall race is a possible run by Richard Grenell, the California Republican who held several positions in the Trump administration, including, briefly, acting director of national intelligence.
Last month, he dropped a not-so-subtle hint about running for governor during his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He hasn't made an official determination, but continues to bash Newsom and California Democrats on Twitter.
"If I were governor," Grenell opined recently in a tweet, "I would immediately and temporarily suspend collective bargaining agreements that stood in the way of opening our schools. The mental and economic health of our State must also be considered."
There's no limit to how many people can run in such an election. In the Davis recall, voters had 135 candidates to choose from, including former child star Gary Coleman and adult film actress Mary Carey.
Sundheim said the party was actively talking to candidates leading up to its endorsement of Schwarzenegger. Ultimately, they were looking for someone who was popular with the voters and could run a statewide campaign, he said.
"It was always with the concept that the Republican Party would get behind the candidate that a reflected the the opinions of the people of California and also had the ability to put together a successful campaign," he said.
"(The party's) responsibility is to try to provide a candidate that best meets the interests and desires of the state."
