With Newsom poised to win California recall, indicating COVID politics may be starting to favor Democrats over Republicans

It’s still technically possible for in-person Republican recallers to flood polling places Tuesday and overcome the huge advantage Democrats have already amassed in early mail ballots, which were sent to all 22 million registered California voters weeks ago. (So far, more than 35 percent of them have been returned, and Democrats have sent in 4.1 million ballots to Republicans’ 1.9 million.)

Because of California’s quirky recall rules, Newsom needs at least 50 percent of voters to say on the first ballot question that no, they do not want to recall him. If he gets less than that, then whoever gets the most votes on the second ballot question (who do you want to replace Newsom?) takes his job, even if only, say, 27.6 percent of voters — that is, the share who currently say they support Elder — choose that particular replacement candidate.

But the chances of such a bizarre outcome have dwindled in the closing days of the campaign, and Newsom is widely expected to survive. Assuming, then, that he does, what will that reveal about the dynamics shaping U.S. politics more than 18 months into the pandemic?

Nothing very encouraging for Republicans. To be sure, the recall was always a long shot. ​​In 2018, Newsom was elected governor with 62 percent of the vote — the largest Democratic landslide in state history. Nearly three years later, 57 percent of Californians still approve of his performance in office, according to a recent CBS News poll. And Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters statewide by nearly 2 to 1.

But the pandemic gave anti-Newsom conservatives a glimmer of hope. Every California governor since Ronald Reagan in the 1960s has inspired quixotic recall efforts. Prior to February 2020, Newsom’s opponents introduced five recall petitions against him. None got off the ground. It was only when COVID-19 started to spike over the holidays — and when Newsom seemed to be caught off guard by contradictory public opinion over restrictions and reopenings — that the recallers were able to gather the signatures they needed to get on the ballot. Not helping matters was the governor’s deeply hypocritical decision to attend a lobbyist’s maskless birthday dinner at the French Laundry, a fancy Napa Valley restaurant.

At the time, many Americans hoped that so-called herd immunity was on the horizon and that vaccines would soon vanquish the virus. In that context, the hands-off vision of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, among other Republicans, looked alluring. No indoor mask mandates. No vaccine requirements. No more stress on families or businesses. Just live your life as if the pandemic was already over, and soon it would be.

Then came Delta. Now, a few months later, Florida has become one of the only states where more people are dying of COVID each day — long after free, safe and effective vaccines became widely available to all Americans age 12 or older — than during any previous wave of the virus. In fact, the Sunshine State is now recording nearly twice as many daily COVID deaths (350 on average) than it was at last summer’s peak (185). No other state comes close.

In contrast, Californians are dying of COVID-19 at a lower rate today (103 per day) than last summer (140 per day), despite the fact that Delta is twice as transmissible as the initial strain of SARS-CoV-2, which was circulating in 2020. That’s the kind of progress you would expect after vaccination.

As Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, recently tweeted, “Cumulatively, CA and FL had similar death rates until April 2021. The states then started separating. Now, cumulative deaths [are] 30% higher (per capita) in FL than CA.” If Florida had instead gone on to match California’s cumulative per capita death rate, about 11,000 Floridians who have succumbed to COVID would still be alive today.

Why the divergence? Florida’s full vaccination rate (54 percent) is only slightly lower than California’s (57 percent), so immunity is only part of the story. The same goes for demographics; Florida had more elderly residents than California last summer too.

According to Jha, the real problem has been Florida’s “abrogation of other public health measures.”

“CA continues masking, testing, pushing vax,” he explained. “FL? Not so much.”

During California’s bout with Delta, there have been no lockdowns, no business closures, no official curbs on indoor drinking or dining — just a general public bias toward caution that is both reflected and reinforced by indoor mask mandates (along with an emerging trend toward vaccine requirements, particularly for health, school and government employees).

In contrast, DeSantis doubled down on his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates when Delta took off, prohibiting local governments, local businesses and even local school districts from implementing such policies — and therefore discouraging Floridians themselves from behaving more cautiously.

Much has been made of Elder’s well-timed emergence as a convenient bogeyman for Newsom to run against. And it’s true that any California Democrat would rather that voters think less about whether they’re content with the status quo — with its rampant homelessness and astronomical living costs — than about whether they’d be better off with a conservative firebrand who denies the existence of systemic racism, opposes gun control and abortion rights, wants to abolish the minimum wage and has recently come under fire for his past comments about women and allegations from a former fiancée.

“When Larry Elder emerged on the scene, all of a sudden it wasn’t a referendum [on Newsom] anymore — it was a choice,” Schnur explained. “And Newsom was able to say, ‘If you don’t keep me as governor, look what’s gonna happen.’”

But another factor came to the fore around the same time as Elder: Delta.

From then on, the main issue was never going to be homelessness or crime or taxes. It was always going to be the clear and present danger of a ruthless new variant. As a result, the final choice for voters — as dramatized by the South’s horrific summer surge and hammered home by Elder’s vow to “fight any and all vaccine and mask mandates at [the] state and local level” — was between continuing to exercise the kind of basic precautions that already seemed to helping California keep Delta in check and letting the virus rip like DeSantis & Co., just as kids head back to school.

“Republicans want to take us backwards with this Sept. 14 recall,” Newsom declared in a recent ad. “They’ll eliminate vaccine mandates for health and school workers on day one, threatening school closures and our recovery.” On the stump, he has warned that Elder will “walk us off that same COVID cliff as Texas and Florida, Tennessee and Alabama and Georgia.”

Californians are “not particularly happy with [Newsom] on homelessness, on education, on public safety, but those issues, despite the Republican candidates’ efforts to talk about them, are of secondary if not tertiary importance to the virus,” Schnur said.

“And unlike last year, when Newsom was telling people to stay home, given the fact that we have vaccines now, the most onerous thing he’s saying is you must wear a mask, you must get vaccinated. That isn’t nearly as onerous. So particularly when compared and contrasted to other states in the country, Californians are feeling good about him on the only issue that matters to them right now.”

Whether a similar playbook will work for other Democrats down the road remains to be seen. But what Newsom’s likely success in California does suggest is that while voters are desperate for the pandemic to end, many of them no longer believe that the best way to get there is by pretending it already has.

"Their verdict could have national implications for both Democrats and Republicans heading into the 2022 midterm elections."

What a stupid article. His challenger is spectacularly crazy, and running in a stark blue state. He was never going to win. There are NO lessons to be gleaned from this.

Yet some fools on DL have insisted Newsom will lose in the recall, which is absurd.

The election is tomorrow!

[quote]There are NO lessons to be gleaned from this.

Well of course not. But if Newsom loses, this will doom Democrats across the nation to oblivion, right R3?

[quote]Yet some fools on DL have insisted Newsom will lose in the recall, which is absurd.

The article points out that polling was even in August. It's only been in the last month that the ramifications of flipping the Governor to a MAGAt would be dire for the state, the country, democracy and the world. The reasoning was sound, and as many trolls here have pushed, Hispanics and the third of the electorate they represent are not a lock for Democrats.

And it still isn't guaranteed. Polling has been wrong before.

If you live in California and have not already sent your ballot back, go vote "No" on the recall in person tomorrow!

I wish there were some way to make the stupid hillbillies behind this recall pay the cost of it.

Elder has already started putting the voting fraud *thing* out there.

Everybody vote. Don't depend on polls.

I checked and my ballot was received.

I think people on here are forgetting all of the dumb Florida voters who couldn't figure out their ballots back in 2000.

This state could also produce some questionable results with their nutty wordings & in a close election it could help determine the outcome.

Why the dems didn't reform this process more after Davis's recall with their current supermajority I'll never know.

There are only two questions on the ballot this time. It's very easy to read. Dem party is advising not to answer the second one. Don't dignify the Republican play book scam. That's why they did not push an alternative Dem to pick from.

The first question is should Newsom be recalled.

The second question is if he is to be recalled, which one of the 40 Republican nut jobs do you want to replace him with.

When will we know if Gavin won or not?

It may take a month for all the GOP to do their best to steal it.

[quote] indicating COVID politics may be starting to favor Democrats over Republicans

Only in decidedly blue states

MSNBC just called it. Newsom will NOT be recalled. We Love Newsom - CALIF

The ABC News Decision Desk is now projecting that the recall of California Gov. Gavin Newsom has failed.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES!!!

Suck it Repugs!!!!

"It’s still technically possible for in-person Republican recallers to flood polling places Tuesday and overcome the huge advantage Democrats have already amassed in early mail ballots..." Uh--no, it wasn't, R1.