More Than a Recall: Gavin Newsom’s Decisive Victory in California Offers Insight into National Attitudes on Covid-19 Response, Trumpism, and More

62.7% of California voters chose to keep Governor Gavin Newsome in office on Sept. 14, 2021. Source

As of September 22, 2021, with 11.6 million ballots counted, 62.8% of California voters have chosen to reject the attempted recall of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. While these results have been called a “landslide victory”, polls conducted only weeks before showed Newsom in jeopardy of losing the recall. What led to Newsom’s decisive victory? Did the recall act as a referendum on broader issues? What implications do the results carry? What’s next for California? An inspection of the political climate and national context surrounding the recall vote offers answers to the questions that lie beneath the headlines.

The initiative to remove Gavin Newsom from office that would eventually make its way onto the ballot was one of five attempts made since his election in 2018, but the only one to find the necessary momentum to reach the 1.5 million signature threshold (12% of the last election’s turnout), California’s relatively low bar to qualify a recall election. Though initially citing issues like the death penalty and immigration, the recall effort didn’t gain real traction until it had morphed into a vehicle for the anger felt by many Californians about Newsom’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst strictly imposed lockdown and public gathering guidelines which many saw as unnecessary and ineffectual, Newsom was seen dining with his friends at one of the Bay Area’s finest restaurants, adding accelerant to a loudening national outcry against the hypocrisy of leaders caught violating the restrictions they publicly defended. In the end, it seems that Newsom’s response to the pandemic may have been what secured his victory, as California has weathered the virus relatively well when compared to many states, faring much better against recent outbreaks of the delta variant thanks to high vaccination rates. Newsom and the Democratic Party’s strategy of portraying Republican opponent Larry Elder as a Trump-loving extremist also appear to have paid off, as the talk show host was easily demonized, a less-than-impossible task given his highly controversial takes on reparations and women’s equality. 

As it was propelled by lockdown fatigue and frustration over the often contradictory guidelines offered by public health professionals, many view the recall election as a referendum on Covid response. When deliberating on how to implement the restrictions and mandates that experts knew were needed to “flatten the curve”, Newsom faced a conundrum all too familiar to public health officials, and one that played out across the country at every level of government. Mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 virus and pathogens like it requires leaders to convince their citizens to adjust their behavior and habits before they can perceive immediate risk in their daily lives. Reflecting on Newsom’s victory and the outcome of the referendum it came to represent, it appears that a majority of voters recognize that the Democrats’ consistent commitment to science worked. For proof, one need only look to most of the Southeast and Mountain West where mixed messaging and lax guidelines from Republican leadership on vaccines and mask mandates have seen the return of hundreds of daily COVID-19 related deaths as hospitals once again reach capacity. 

Equal in its role of acting as a referendum on pandemic response, the months leading up to California’s recall election acted as a critical proving ground for Democrats’ ability to present a compelling message strong enough to mobilize progressive voters, and achieve the turnout needed for their candidates to win elections in the fast-approaching 2022 midterms. An Elder victory would have carried grim implications for this prospect, while simultaneously sending a resounding signal that Trumpism is not only alive within the Republican party, but potent enough to win a gubernatorial seat in Democrat-dominated California. Do the outcome of the recall and the margin by which Larry Elder was handily defeated indicate that the fanatic high of Trumpism has begun to wear off within the Republican party? Or does the mere fact that a candidate like Elder got this far suggest the very opposite?

Independent of the influence of a certain former president, Republican’s strategy of painting Newsom as an out-of-touch liberal elite undoubtedly found at least initial traction with independents and even some Democratic voters. Does this offer a potential blueprint for the next Republican gubernatorial win in California? With the Democrats’ five million voter majority, any aspiring Republican candidate would certainly need a bipartisan appeal equatable to the level achieved by the celebrity status of Arnold Schwarzenneger, the last Republican governor of California who won office when Gray Davis was successfully recalled in 2003. California’s unusual recall laws are key to Republican hopes of winning the Governor’s office as Democratic turnout is far more unfavorable during recall elections than normal election cycles. Democrats in the state have already launched efforts to implement more typical recall laws that would prevent future “weaponization” of the process by Republicans, as Newsom characterized it following his victory.