The LA Times reports on the movement to recall California's governor:
As the effort to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom from office intensifies, a critical question is whether another Democrat jumps into the race to replace him. No candidate has come forward yet, but many political experts believe it is inevitable.
Democrats “won’t have any choice,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communication at USC and UC Berkeley. “It’s important to present a unified front, but it’s even more important for them to protect themselves.”
Darry Sragow, a veteran Democratic strategist, said the party must consider the worst-case scenario. “The fundamental point is Democrats really have to think long and hard about not having a good alternative to Gavin on the ballot if he is recalled,” he said. “That’s just the reality.”
This is crazy talk. There's really no chance that Newsom will lose the recall election as long as Democrats stay united behind him.
But wait. Didn't Gray Davis lose a recall election in 2003? Indeed he did. But Davis was a robotic guy who was never well liked. He won reelection in 2002 by less than 400,000 votes, compared to a 3 million vote margin for Newsom's reelection in 2018. Davis was also hamstrung by the state's energy crisis, which he oversaw, as well as a big budget deficit that he addressed with unpopular tax hikes. Newsom, by contrast, has generally handled the coronavirus well and has no budget deficit to deal with. Finally, and most damning, Davis's approval rating eight months before the recall was a dismal 24% among likely voters. (That is not a typo.) Newsom has declined a bit lately, but still clocks in at a respectable 52%.
This year is nothing like 2003. The electorate is more Democratic; Newsom is more popular than Davis was; there's no charismatic, populist Republican like Arnold Schwarzenegger to lure voters away; and the current recall election is widely viewed as nothing more than a Republican hatchet job from the same lunatics who brought you Donald Trump and insurrection at the Capitol. And remember that even with all his baggage, Davis still lost by only a small margin, 55%-45%. Short of some kind of unpredictable catastrophe, there's no way that Newsom can't improve on that by at least five percentage points. More likely is something like 20-30 points.
Given all this, I can't imagine what Democrats are afraid of. Just stick with Newsom, run a tough campaign, and win easily. Republicans have little to run on aside from a single ill-advised campaign dinner at the French Laundry, and that's just not enough to get the job done.
Also remember that in November, the COVID-19 situation is going to look a lot different than it does today. You can be sure that this fact will help him a lot.
I agree with your analysis. Moreover I'd think it would be mistake to nominate a D candidate against Newsome. It would certainly cost him votes and if for whatever reason the margins tighten the existence of a competing credible D candidate might throw an election to the GOP that would have been won if it weren't for the splitting of the D vote.
That said: If you look at the data it is hard to say Newsome did a great job on COVID. I'd stipulate that Jerry Brown would have been more successful than Newsome has been. Why? I can't really put my finger on it. But my impression of Newsome has always been that he is kind of a showboat. His gay-marriage-stunt back when he was mayor of San Francisco was I believe quite successful in shifting public opinion. But in general those sort of stunts mean little or nothing. Hard work does.
Why do Republicans hate dinner?
If it is an all mail election, it will be a blowout. One of the reasons the recall of Davis worked was that it was a low turnout special election.
Yeah, but Davis was a disaster. I decided to leave CA when my electric bill went from $60 to $300 because he was depending on the spot market for purchases. When my employer installed a diesel generator the size of semi trailer in the parking lot so they could keep their server farm running through a blackout I knew it was going to be bad.
To be fair, however, that wasn't really Davis's fault. Enron and other energy firms were screwing around with the ISO and creating shortages so they could profit
Yes, but IIRC, he didn't sign long-term contracts because he thought the spot market would stay low forevah. He was making a bet that didn't pay off, and for that I could not forgive him. This is aside from the fact deregulating utilities, as shown over and over, is a big fucking ;mistake. Look at what happened in Montana and then more recently in Texas. Regulation is meant to protect society and consumers. Getting rid of it only benefits business profits.
I think the concern is that Newsome has never been hugely popular among Democrats. He was the most prominent Democrat and he kind of seemed inevitable. But his support is about and inch wide and barely millimeters deep so if the opportunity arose to dump him, I think a lot of Democrats would take it (particularly since Kelvin’s in the minority on COVID-19) but that opens the door for a republican.
This is the danger which everyone recognizes and it’s probably why no other Democrats have jumped in. But if you have low support for Newsome and low interest in the recall I think it is possible that he gets recalled and the question will be whether Democrats will come out to vote for someone they neither care about or like.
I don't know how any elected official could be hugely popular during a pandemic, but I'd call a +/- of around 50/40 is pretty damn good.
Biden is very popular during a pandemic because he doing the right stuff and he's proactive in fighting the Covid-19. The system for delivering the vaccine was very poorly organized and dependent on "free enterprise" which turns out to be more interested in marketing opportunities than delivering vaccinations quickly and easily.
In every instance, it's been the public health organizations at the city and county level who've been out in front and Newsom who's been an impediment and a weak leader afraid to antagonize conservatives by demanding enforcement of public health measures.
He's also the idiot who squandered California's early successes by opening up the bars for no good reason and we've been behind the eight ball ever since.
How difficult was it for you to admit that Neoliberal warmonger stooge Biden has made all the right moves?
Not difficult at all.
I don't know who "Darry Strager" is, but if he really is a "Democratic strategist" he needs to be fired asap. The worst thing the Democrats could possible do in a recall election is to put another Democrat on the ballot to split. It's absolutely bonkers. If Newsome is the only Democrat on the ballot, the anti-Newsome vote gets split among the remaining 100+ candidates (not an exaggeration - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_California_gubernatorial_recall_election).
The difficulty is that most Democrats weren't particularly enthusiastic about Newsome in the first place and wouldn't be adverse to an upgrade. If the Republicans can trigger a recall election, it's very likely to be a very low turnout election in which case it might be nice to have someone more inspirational on the ballot that Democrats might be motivated to turn out for.
The other variable is who the Republicans run: One reason why Arnold could win the recall election was that there wasn't a party primary. In recent decades, that's been the Republicans main problem—they're sort of like the gingerbread man who can run until he gets hot and can't get hot until he runs. Essentially, no Republican who can win the primary can win a general election.
"there's no charismatic, populist Republican like Arnold Schwarzenegger to lure voters away"
This is a huge factor. Once Arnold announced he was running, Davis was doomed. The local news promoted him like he was the star of the new network series.
No Democrat of any significance is going to be in this race.
Gov. O'Shea Jackson, Sr., will wow the Republican Governors Association with his 2022 keynote.
Just you wait & see.
Not a Californian but I have always disliked him even when he was mayor.
That said California is basically in there with Florida on coronavirus, average, so no surprise that he's doing okay. The only real thing I have against your analysis is that 10 points is a landslide not a small margin at all.
Your statement about where CA is with respect to the virus is dead wrong. Florida, with about 1/2 the population of CA is running about 2x the daily new cases. Corrected for population that is almost 4x the rate of CA. TX is in similar, although not as dire situation. You can look at my own state of Montana and see that CA has about 1/2 the per-capita daily new infections.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/the-curious-case-of-floridas-pandemic-response/618360/
Upper end of average and lower end of average are both average.
California today: 71 new cases per million
Florida today: 213 new cases per million
Texas today: 126 new cases per million
Montana today: 166 new cases per million
All based on 7-day moving average of new cases. One of these states is doing fairly well in containing the epidemic today. The others not so much.
In all fairness, NY is really fucked. They are at 405 per million.
California is now doing pretty well on Covid and things are opening back up. Barring some serious new surge of Covid due to a radical new variant appearing or something, things will continue to improve and in a few months the economy will be roaring back and things won't seem as bad. Kevin's right. As long as Democrats stay behind him and all Republicans have to offer are wild-eyed Trumpist loons, Newsom's probably safe.
To be fair, however, that wasn't really Davis's fault. Enron and other energy firms were screwing around with the ISO and creating shortages so they could profit. Davis was telling people this at the time, but everyone just laughed at him and said he was trying to shift the blame. He was right, but no-one listened and they booted him out and replaced him with, *sigh*, yet another actor-turned-politician who proceeded to sent the budget into a tailspin, borrowed the state into oblivion, and left a huge mess for the next Democratic governor to clean up.
And they want to do it again?
Sorry -- for some reason part of the post posted in the reply thread above while the rest of it ended up down here. Not sure how that happened!
This really kicks in the nostalgia. I started reading KD (and Yglesias, and Ezra and others) during the Davis recall, following links from the noted goat-blower at Slate. I had never really heard of "blogs" before then.
I'm pretty much in agreement with the overall argument here. Despite some bad press, Newsom is reasonably popular, and the big knock on him was just a stupid PR move at the French Laundry. Even more importantly, as stated above, I think that overall the mood in the state/country will be MUCH improved by the time they get around to actually holding a recall election that Newsom will just be buoyed by that.
That said, in what world is a 10-point loss "a small margin"??
Mickey Kaus fellates goats?
Yep, and I have photographic evidence.
For insurance purposes, there must be at least one prominent Democrat on the second part of the recall ballot, preferably someone already on Newsom's team. Lieutenant Governor Elena Kounalakis is an obvious choice. Remember, Democrats on the second part of the ballot are not competing against Newsom in any meaningful way. Politics is like jiu-jitsu, and all bases must be covered. (Marc Valdez - placed 41st in the 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall Election)
If I understand the why this works (and I might not), another Democrat on the second part of the ballot (who should replace Newsome if he's recalled would likely split the Democratic vote since if I recall correctly Grey Davis was also a candidate to fill his newly opened up spot. Almost any Democrat would be more popular than Newsome and the temptation to upgrade might be a problem in what I believe will be a very low turnout election.
Governor Gray Davis did not run on the second part of the recall ballot in 2003. The Democratic party consensus in 2003 was that no prominent Democrat should run at all, foolishly imagining that the recall campaign could be quelled by presenting a united front in support of Davis. Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante bucked the consensus and ran, however, correctly sensing that the united front would not hold. Bustamante placed second, with 32% of the vote.
In 2021, Newsom is in better shape than Davis was in 2003, but it would be foolish to assume that events might not intervene and somehow make Newsom toxic to the electorate. Better to be prepared than to hand the office to some random Republican clown.
Is Andy from Parks n' Rec clown to you?
No, you’re right. Davis wasn’t on the second part of the ballot. And it was perhaps unique that there were at least two guys as candidates that most Californians strongly preferred to Grey Davis. So I think there was a feeling that he was expendable.
Good. Unlike Andrew Cuomo, he doesn't really deserve to lose his job as Governor even if some of his Covid response decisions were baffling (like the weird patchwork of outdoor bans).
I gotta say, the commenters who keep misspelling Newsom's name are undercutting their case.
The wild card in the recall is the pandemic. People have lost their businesses, their careers, and they are going to want to lash out at somebody, particularly in the government. Especially since not everyone was treated equally in the lockdown. What businesses got to stay open? What businesses had to stay closed? Who got designated an essential worker? That's why the Governor's PR fiasco resonated so strongly. It stuck in people's craw. People who lost everything they had worked for their whole lives due to the lockdown remembered that image. It served to focus their anger.
I'm not the biggest fan of Gavin Newsom, but I hope he doesn't get recalled. It's more of the Republican Party's electoral dirty tricks, and they need to knock it off, especially following the debacle at the Capitol. But in a state that once elected Arnold Schwarzenegger governor in a recall election, I am not so sure that Newsom is a shoo-in.
And besides, Davis’ hair was never so reliably perfect as Newsom’s...
In some ways, November 2016 is ages ago, but it will not be easy to forget a prediction that Clinton won Florida..,
The main takeaway here is that California's recall law is really dumb and needs to be overhauled or just repealed.