The 2021 California Gubernatorial Recall Wrap-Up
Introduction: Only two days remain until polls close on the historic California Gubernatorial Recall election of 2021, and it has been a roller coaster since the recall movement began to pick up steam. Last month, polling narrowed to the point where state and national Democrats showed concern that Governor Newsom faced a serious chance of being recalled and replaced by conservative talk show host Larry Elder. However, conditions changed rapidly once again as the eleventh hour neared, which is possibly the result of increased Democratic enthusiasm to protect the incumbent Governor (Willon). As the clock almost closes on this once-in-a-while election, this post will briefly discuss the current situation and trends to watch for as ballots are counted.
Polling: Since Question 1 polling margins significantly narrowed last month, newer polls show an increasing margin against recalling Governor Newsom (Willon). As of publication time, the FiveThirtyEight average has "No" at 56.2%, and "Yes" at 41.6% ("Latest Polls"), while the RealClearPolitics average is similar at 56.4% and 41.4%, respectively ("2021 California"). Polling on Question 2 generally continues to show talk show host Larry Elder (R) leading the horse race of candidates, followed by vlogger Kevin Praffath (D) and ex-San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer (R) ("Latest Polls").
Campaign Activity: With the aforementioned tightening of Question 1 polls and Democratic concern that Governor Newsom was at significant risk of being recalled, the national party and its surrogates jumped into the race to assist Newsom. Most notably, Vice-President and ex-California Attorney General and Senator Kamala Harris (D) urged Democratic base voters to vote so as to preserve California's existing social and voting policies (Reston). Progressive Senators and ex-Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders (D) and Elizabeth Warren (D) have also put out statements supporting the governor (Greenwood; Reston). On the eve of the recall, President Biden (D) himself will host a rally to support Governor Newsom in Long Beach, highlighting key issues facing California that could be impacted by a successful recall (Ronayne, "Biden").
On the pro-recall side, Larry Elder (R) has been notably active, having hosted several major rallies throughout the state in the last week (Franco; Telles and Wynter). Furthermore, Elder recently reacted to Harris's and Biden's support for Newsom by claiming it was meant to distract from significant issues facing California and the ongoing situation in Afghanistan (Ronayne, "Biden"). Meanwhile, another replacement candidate, John Cox, has recently been in a dispute with the state party over their endorsement process, accusing them of corruption and favoritism (Christopher). Despite his lagging poll numbers (discussed below), Kevin Faulconer (R) has been refocusing his message on voters undecided on Question 2, hoping to reach out to moderates and centrists through pitching his past record of being a moderate problem-solver (Gregorczyk). Finally, the only "high-profile" Democrat running on Question 2, Kevin Paffrath, has been hoping for increased name recognition as his path to Sacramento, while also attending Democratic rallies to support Governor Newsom, and warning voters of the consequences should a Republican candidate become governor. Simultaneously, he has criticized the national party for its "Don't vote on Question 2" message to its voters, arguing it could increase the chances of a successful recall and a Republican governor (Ronayne, "YouTuber").
Fundraising: As of the most recent numbers from a page hosted by the Los Angeles Times, over $120 million has been raised over the course of the recall campaign, with $44 million from sources supporting the recall and $82 million from sources opposing it. Out of that $82 million, most ($71 million) comes from several anti-recall committees, while the remainder has been raised by Newsom's campaign and the state Democratic Party (Menezes and Moore).
Among candidates hoping to replace Newsom if the recall succeeds, Elder and businessman John Cox currently lead the pack, while pro-recall committees account for a far smaller proportion than anti-recall ones. Kevin Paffrath (D) has only raised around $450,000, placing him behind the other replacement candidates. Unsurprisingly, most of the anti-recall and pro-Newsom money comes from the bluest portions of California, while funds raised for pro-recall and replacement candidates are largely spread out, although a significant portion for Elder, Cox, and Faulconer (R) come from Southern California's coastal counties (Menezes and Moore).
Ballot Counting and Results: As of September 8th, around 32% of the mailed ballots have been returned to county elections offices, with the coastal and Sierra Nevada counties having the highest rates of returned ballots so far (Manthay).
Because of its all mail balloting, California often takes several weeks to completely count ballots and tabulate the final results (Denkmann), especially because many mail-in ballots trickle into elections offices after poll closing times, although any ballots arriving 17 days after the election cannot be counted ("What to Expect"). As such, it is normal for final results to await a significant time period for these ballots to be counted and tabulated, and some races may flip in results before the final totals are released (Denkmann).
County Results to Watch For: I should probably have provided this section as part of a previous recall post, but I didn't think about it until preparing this one. For context, Hillary Clinton (D) won California 61.5%-31.5% (30%) in 2016, Gov. Newson won 61.9%-38.1% (23.8%) in 2018, and now-President Joe Biden (D) won 63.5%-34.3% (29.2%) in 2020 ("Statement of Vote" 2018, 21-23; "United States Presidential").
Visual 1: 2004-2020 California Presidential County Voting History
Source: "2004 Presidential"; "2008 Presidential"; "2012 Presidential"; "2016 Presidential"; "2020 Presidential"
Visual 2: 2016 President/2018 Gubernatorial/2020 President County Voting
Source: "2016 Presidential"; "2020 Presidential"; "Statement of Vote"
Visual 3: 2018 Newsom % vs. Clinton 2016% and Biden 2020%
Notes: The values presented above were calculated by subtracting Newsom's % of the vote per county from Clinton's and Biden's presidential vote share. Presidential results reflect Clinton's and Biden's two-party percent of the vote rather than total vote, while the Gubernatorial results are already two-party only. Negative values indicate that Hillary Clinton (D) or Joe Biden (D) outperformed Gov. Newsom (D) and vice-versa for positive values.
Source: "2016 Presidential"; "2020 Presidential"; "Statement of Vote"
22 each of California's counties have voted Democratic or Republican in every presidential election starting in 2004, while the rest have voted for both parties at least once during that time period (Visual 1). Notably, a bloc of 9 counties started voting blue with Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and have remained blue since, while five other counties saw other presidential voting patterns during this time period, with 4 of the 5 voting for Joe Biden (D) in 2020 and the other going for Obama in 2008 while otherwise voting Republican (Trinity).
Comparing these results to Table 2, Gavin Newsom's 2018 county map generally fell in line with the 2016 Presidential map, although the Clinton-won counties of Fresno, Riverside, and Stanislaus narrowly voted for Republican candidate John Cox (R). Meanwhile, it is notable that Orange County, a longtime red county prior to 2016, narrowly voted for Gavin Newsom (D) two years after breaking its 80-year Republican presidential voting streak (Fox et al.; "Statement of Vote" 2018, 21-23). Joe Biden (D) won all of these counties plus Butte and Inyo two years later as part of his presidential victory ("2020 Presidential").
One of the main things to watch for as the results are nearly final is the extent to which support for Governor Newsom (D) will regress compared to the 2018 one, especially in R-D-D-D-D (Gold) counties on Visual 1. In 2018, despite winning 6 of the 9, Newsom won each by less than 5% except for San Diego and Ventura ("Statement of Vote" 2018, 21-23). Furthermore, the Romney-Clinton-Biden counties of Nevada and Orange also narrowly voted for Newsom in 2018, and are also obvious counties that could also vote in favor of recalling the Governor. If a successful recall of Newsom does occur, it might be possible that "less blue" D-D-D-D-D counties may be part of the pro-recall map, with the two most likely being Imperial and Lake, whose reasonings are described below. Sen Benito should also be watched as another possible defection from this group under this scenario, as it only voted for Newsom by only 13%, which was a significant underperformance compared to Clinton and Biden.
Other than the Bush-Obama and Romney-Clinton counties, there are three normally-Democratic counties that could yield insight into key electoral trends. The first is Imperial in the southeast corner, a majority-Latino, rural, and blue-collar-heavy locale that like other similar majority-Latino counties nationwide, swung heavily against Joe Biden in 2020 while still voting for him (Marzorati, "In Imperial"). This is in stark contrast to 2016, where Clinton improved on Obama's showing (Silver). However, Visual 3 reveals that Newsom did more than 10% worse than Clinton in Imperial, while the 2020 Presidential results almost perfectly matched the 2018 gubernatorial results, thus making 2016's results seem like an abnormality. In the former year, President Trump (R) did decisively well among Latino communities nationwide despite losing the group, which was a significant change from his 2016 performance, including in Imperial (Marzorati, "In Imperial"). Using Question 1's "Yes" vote as a Republican proxy (as the recall is overwhelmingly Republican-supported), the result from Imperial could reveal whether 2020's Republican surge among Latino voters continues without Trump on the ballot, although the final turnout rate will have to be factored into such analysis, as Imperial's turnout rate is still the lowest in the state (Marzorati, "Imperial"), while Latino rates of returning recall ballots are lower than other groups (Marzorati, "Newsom"). While determining this will require looking at more micro-level data, Orange County could be a similar bellwether of minority groups that came out heavily for Trump after voting heavily for Clinton have soured on Newsom. Of note here is the county's extensive Vietnamese-American population, a group that supported Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016 before swinging heavily to support Trump in 2020, and many of whom are angered by COVID shutdown measures and supportive of Trump's toughness on China (Kopetman et al.). Ultimately, both of these counties could reveal whether the 2020 results that Trump posted among such groups were unique or part of a larger trend.
Lake County north of the Bay Area should be watched for whether it votes in favor of recalling Governor Newsom. For context, Lake has voted Democratic in every presidential election starting in 1988, and gave Obama over almost 60% both times. However, in 2016, the county swung heavily to the point of coming within 5% of Trump's reach, and only moved slightly more Democratic in 2020 ("United States Presidential"). In 2018, Gov. Newsom actually performed worse than Hillary Clinton had in Lake County, only winning it by 4% ("Statement of Vote," 21). The reason for its swing possibly stems from the county's combination of being majority-White, having a low rate of college attainment, and a working-class-level of average income ("Overview of"), all factors that are increasingly correlated with Republican strength (Silver). While the recall ballot's is nonpartisan, this year could be the first time in a while that Lake does not support a statewide Democratic candidate running for Governor, U.S. Senator, or President. The 2018 Gubernatorial result and Newsom's overall decline in popularity since further supports this possibility. With this in mind, Lake could reveal whether the decline of Democratic support in rural White working class locales continues without Trump on the ballot.
Finally, San Francisco, Alameda, and the North Coast counties (e.g. Mendocino, Humboldt) should be watched for Democratic base turnout, while the less urban San Joaquin Valley and interior North counties will reveal Republican base turnout.
Data Sources:
"2004 Presidential General Election Results." David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
"2008 Presidential General Election Results." David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
"2012 Presidential General Election Results." David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
"2016 Presidential General Election Results." David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
"2020 Presidential General Election Results." David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
"Statement of Vote: November 6, 2018 General Election." California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, 14 Dec. 2018, elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2018-general/sov/2018-complete-sov.pdf, 21-23. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Works Cited:
"2021 California Governor Recall Election." RealClearPolitics, www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2021/governor/ca/2021-california-governor-recall-election-7360.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Christopher, Ben. "How did John Cox go from GOP standard-bearer to bears and trash balls?" CalMatters, 9 Aug. 2021, calmatters.org/politics/2021/08/newsom-recall-john-cox-republicans/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Denkmann, Libby. "California Counts Votes In Its Own Good Time. Here's Why Declaring Winners May Take A Minute." LAist, 3 Mar. 2020, laist.com/news/why-california-takes-so-long-to-count-votes-after-elections. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Franco, Jose. "Recall candidate Larry Elder set for third campaign appearance in Bakersfield." KGET News, 8 Sept. 2021, www.kget.com/news/politics/your-local-elections/recall-candidate-larry-elder-set-for-third-campaign-appearance-in-bakersfield/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Fox, Joe, Priya Krishnakumar, and Jon Schleuss. "For the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt, a majority in Orange County voted for a Democrat." Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2016, www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-2016-orange-county-results/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Greenwood, Max. "Sanders urges support for Newsom in new California recall ad." The Hill, 30 Aug. 2021, thehill.com/homenews/campaign/569985-sanders-urges-support-for-newsom-in-new-california-recall-ad. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Gregorczyk, Kasia. "Ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer makes final push to appeal to recall voters." FOX 5, 3 Sept. 2021, fox5sandiego.com/news/politics/california-governor-recall/ex-san-diego-mayor-kevin-faulconer-makes-final-push-to-appeal-to-recall-voters/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Kim, Catherine. "GOP confronts big trouble in Little Saigon." Politico, 24 Aug. 2021, www.politico.com/news/2021/08/24/republicans-asian-american-voters-506778. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Kopetman, Roxana, Brooke Staggs, and Ian Wheeler. "Why did Vietnamese voters in Orange County swing toward Trump in 2020?" Orange County Register, 7 Mar. 2021, www.ocregister.com/2021/03/07/why-did-vietnamese-voters-in-orange-county-swing-toward-trump-in-2020/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
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Manthey, Grace. "California recall election: How many ballots have been returned in your county?" ABC7, 10 Sept. 2021, abc7news.com/california-recall-ballot-return-interactive-map-gavin-newsom-ballots/11011088/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Marzorati, Guy. "In Imperial County, Warning Signs for California Democrats." KQED, 30 Aug. 2021, www.kqed.org/news/11886210/in-imperial-county-warning-signs-for-california-democrats. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
---. "Newsom Needs Latinos To Turn Out For The Recall, But He May Not Have Their Attention." National Public Radio, 10 Sept. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035148423/newsom-needs-latinos-to-turn-out-for-the-recall-but-may-not-have-their-attention. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Menezes, Ryan, and Maloy Moore. "Track the millions funding the campaign to recall California’s governor." Los Angeles Times, last modified 9 Sept. 2021, www.latimes.com/projects/california-recall-election-money-newsom-vs-jenner-cox/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
"Overview of California." Statistical Atlas, last modified 4 Sept. 2018, statisticalatlas.com/state/California/Overview. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Reston, Maeve. "Harris rallies with Newsom to send a message to female voters in final days of California recall campaign." CNN, 8 Sept. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/09/08/politics/kamala-harris-gavin-newsom-california-recall/index.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Ronayne, Kathleen. "Biden to campaign Monday with Newsom as recall nears end." Associated Press, 9 Sept. 2021, apnews.com/article/joe-biden-california-kamala-harris-coronavirus-pandemic-barack-obama-3073a1f6956374f22c15a4f104ccc982. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
---. "YouTuber hunts views and votes in California recall bid." Associated Press, 24 Aug. 2021, apnews.com/article/technology-business-california-2fefdddd204970936580081d6b1ed128. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Silver, Nate. "Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump." FiveThirtyEight, 22 Nov. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Telles, Megan, and Kareen Wynter. "Gov. Newsom, Larry Elder rally voters in SoCal ahead of recall election." KTLA5, 6 Sept. 2021, ktla.com/news/local-news/gov-newsom-larry-elder-rallies-voters-in-socal-ahead-of-recall-election/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
"United States Presidential Election Results." Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
"What to Expect During the California Vote Count Process." California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, 29 Oct. 2020, admin.cdn.sos.ca.gov/press-releases/2020/ap20-107.pdf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.
Willon, Phil. "New poll finds Newsom could easily beat recall thanks to motivated Democrats." Los Angeles Times, 10 Sept. 2021, www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-10/democrats-motivated-poll-finds-gavin-newsom-might-easily-survive-california-recall. Accessed 11 Sept. 2021.
