Many Democratic voters in a state that President Joe Biden won by nearly 30 points had not committed or paid much attention to it, as Newsom argued amorphously that the withdrawal was an attempt by Republicans to take office. of former President Donald Trump and a symbol of enduring tenure. of “Trumpism.”
Elder’s threat changed Newsom’s strategy and trajectory of the race.
“There was a growing sense among political experts that the anti-withdrawal campaign was focused on Donald Trump, as the evil force we had to defeat was losing strength,” said Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, who is the editor of the California Target Book, which tracks election funding data and campaigns in the state. “Then his alter ego appears in a state where Donald Trump got about a third of the vote … Someone smiled at Gavin Newsom and gave California voters a chance to hear Larry Elder.”
The Covid contrast
California Democrats were frightened once they began to hear Elder’s past statements about women, her support for discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, her opposition to abortion and minimum wage rights, and her skepticism about the climate crisis, among many other issues.
But Democrats withdrew more virulently from their views on Covid and their opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, positions that are strongly at odds with most Californians, including many independents and some Republicans.
“After all the years of far-right stuff Larry had said, that reinforced the threat of what he was saying about Covid,” said veteran California Democratic strategist Bill Carrick. “Everyone thought I meant it.”
Anne Dunsmore, campaign director for the pro-recall group known as Rescue California, said Newsom’s effort to villain Elder stopped part of the momentum it had been seeing by the withdrawal effort among voters of all political convictions: “He didn’t succeed at this point by painting the picture around a face -” Here’s the face of what you’ll have if you don’t choose me, “he said. But with Elder, he added, Newsom” went scare the electorate “.
Newsom acknowledged Saturday that Elder had helped galvanize and capture the attention of Democrats who might otherwise have skipped the election, calling it “extreme even by extreme rules.”
“So I think people have definitely woken up with that,” Newsom told reporters at a campaign event in Oakland. “Larry Elder certainly makes the contrast with this campaign, this candidacy much easier to express.”
The radio host has suggested that Democrats and the press use the controversies to distract themselves from what they consider Newsom’s bad history, while blaming the governor for the heavy job losses during the pandemic and the fact that many students ‘public schools could not attend class in person.
“It’s about losing business in California; it’s about losing jobs in California,” Elder said at a recent news conference. “It’s about our poor government: schools where our children were already behind a whole year, now they’re another, because Gavin Newsom ignored science and closed schools even when the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Diseases in the United States) said people can go back to school. ”
A bold agenda, but a tenuous connection with voters
For most of his career, Newsom, 53, had always been more tolerated than loved by Democratic voters.
He had championed a bold, forward-looking agenda on progressive priorities such as the climate crisis, universal health care, and LGBTQ rights, entering the national spotlight when he issued the first same-sex marriage licenses as mayor of San Francisco. Francisco in 2004.
But in interviews, voters often said they had difficulty relating to the impeccably capped family of a politically connected San Francisco family who made millions by building an empire of wineries, restaurants, and other businesses in collaboration with the philanthropist. Gordon Getty.
But frustration was forming among conservatives, business owners and some parents about what they saw as Newsom’s pandemic regulations and shutdowns. In November, advocates of the withdrawal gained momentum when a judge extended the deadline by four months to collect enough signature petitions to run in the vote.
The same month, Newsom attended an unmasked birthday dinner at Napa Valley’s elite restaurant The French Laundry while urging Californians to stay home and avoid meetings outside their homes to stop the spread of Covid . The already famous misstep – for which Newsom has apologized – symbolized what many proponents of memory did not like about the governor.
Dunsmore said at the time “spikes were activated” in both fundraising and signature collections for the pro-retirement side. Newsom was his best asset, he said, because many Californians were angry at what they perceived as his hypocrisy and Covid’s changing regulations.
“There was a wave of discontent. He turned it into a tsunami,” he said. “We just channeled it.”
The withdrawal was scheduled for voting in late April, and after many administrative steps, the lieutenant governor in July set the date for the fall election, launching the withdrawal campaign.
All of the state’s more than 22 million registered voters received postal votes this summer and early face-to-face voting began Sept. 4 in some areas of the state.
More than 8.4 million pre-election votes had been cast as of Monday, according to data from Edison Research, which accounts for 47% of the total votes cast in the state by 2020. Despite some earlier concerns from Democrats on the lack of interest in the elections between According to Edison data, it seems that his voters seem to come to the rescue of Newsom, with 52% of the pre-election votes coming from registered Democratic voters and 25% of registered Republican voters.
Republican Party strategists count on Republicans, some of whom have been skeptical about voting by email because of Trump’s false claims, voting in person on election day. But because Republicans are so in excess – representing only 24.1% of the state electorate to 46.5% of Democrats – the Republican Party’s chances of ousting the governor depend on huge turnout. republican and of little democratic participation once all the ballots are counted. This scenario seems increasingly unlikely.
Newsom campaign advisers said that in the end, the anti-withdrawal message could be distilled into a single thought: that a “yes” vote for the withdrawal meant choosing “a pro-Trump, anti-vaccine Republican. that he would reverse the mandates on the first day “.
It is a reality that the Newsom team knows very well. “The message that should be taken out of this campaign is also a very simple message, which is: Don’t be shy with Covid,” Newsom advisor Ace Smith said. “The governor took bold steps on mandates and masks, and the campaign seized on that and used it to literally create a simple decision for voters:‘ Do you want to be safe? Do you want your communities to be safe? will schools remain open? “
“I think on election day, you’ll see a clear mandate not only against withdrawal, but for sanity in something as important as health,” Smith said.
Tuesday’s turnout and eventual results will prove whether this theory is valid.