The morning after California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s landslide victory in his state’s by-elections, top Democratic National Party leaders highlighted the victory and suggested how it could translate into elections later this year. year and in the middle of 2022.
“We’re pretty excited about California and it’s not because we thought we’d lose it. It’s because the margin is better than expected and it shows that the Republican message is seriously failing in swing neighborhoods,” said the Campaign Committee chairman of the Democratic Congress on Wednesday told reporters Sean Patrick Maloney of New York.
HE DOESN’T HAVE IT: NEWSOM SURVIVES IN CALIFORNIA RECALL ELECTION
Pointing to Newsom’s big victory, Democratic Governors Association Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico said she “expects the same effort at every level ballot box across America when we enter halves.”
According to the latest unofficial results from election officials, approximately 64% of Californians voted no (i.e., against withdrawing Newsom) from Tuesday’s withdrawal election, with only 36% voting to oust the governor first-term Democrat. Newsom’s margin exceeded expectations, surpassing the final public opinion polls leading to the election, which suggested the governor would survive by a much smaller double-digit margin.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses reporters after defeating retreat attempt to oust him from John L. Burton’s California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, California , Tuesday, September 14, 2021. (AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli)
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Newsom, who was overwhelmingly elected governor in 2018 in the heavily blue state, was facing a withdrawal push sparked last year mainly by accusations that he mismanaged his state’s response to the coronavirus, the worst pandemic that attacked the world in a century. The effort was fueled by frustrations over state COVID restrictions on businesses and houses of worship, school stoppages, as well as opposition to state high taxes.
Newsom, his political team and allies spent the summer trying to nationalize the recovery, characterizing it as a Republican “takeover.” And they targeted well-known and influential Democrats and progressives, including President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, a former U.S. senator and state attorney general in California, former President Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. – help inform and motivate California Democrats to vote.
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For the past two months, Newsom has also highlighted the pandemic to promote its efforts to vaccinate Californians and warn of the morbid consequences if a Conservative Republican replaces him in the state leadership and quickly dismisses vaccine and mask mandates. of the state. He repeatedly called the election “a choice about life and death.” And he addressed Conservative radio host Larry Elder, the leader among the 46 substitute candidates on the ballot. Elder, who like many of the other top Republican Party candidates opposed the mandates, was regularly compared to former President Trump.
Republican Conservative radio presenter Larry Elder speaks with supporters after losing the California government-run retirement election on Tuesday, September 14, 2021 in Costa Mesa, California. national battlefront on issues of COVID-19 restrictions on climate change. (Photo by AP / Ashley Landis)
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“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic,” the governor stressed Tuesday night.
The big question for the future is whether Newsom’s defeat, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a two-to-one margin, will result in more competitive electoral battlefields.
WHAT DOES NEWSOM VICTORYRIA MEAN FOR SMALL BUSINESSES IN CALIFORNIA?
Lujan Grisham predicted, “I have no doubt we will see the same successful efforts in Virginia and New Jersey,” the only two states to hold government elections this November.
And Maloney argued that “there will be four seats in Orange County that we will win (mid-2022) and last night I think you saw the people of Orange County and the people of California more widely reject the Republican brand. “.
“You couldn’t have had a better spokesman for the Trump brand than Larry Elder in those elections,” the DCCC chair accused. “And he was punched and I think that should cause a chill down Kevin McCarthy’s spine … We’re very excited about California and it’s not because we thought we’d lose him. It’s because the margin is better than which was expected and demonstrates that the Republican message is seriously failing in the swing neighborhoods. “
Asked about the comments of top Democrats, veteran Republican strategist Colin Reed said, “Democrats singing to win a California retreat is like the 1992 Dream Team that boasts of beating Cuba. It should never be close. fact that is not only shown established this political gravity “.
National Congress Republican Committee Communications Director Michael McAdams accused that “Democrats celebrating a statewide victory in California (who voted for Joe Biden by 29 points) is embarrassing and shows how painful it is. the electoral environment for its vulnerable candidates. ”
And Republican Governors Association communications director Jesse Hunt argued that “it’s not a good omen for Democrats in 2022 if they are to burn millions of dollars in a retreat to America’s most liberal state. “Clearly, Democratic governors are struggling to help their constituencies recover from the pandemic and turmoil it caused. Weak and ineffective leadership is not a strong selling point for their re-election campaigns.”
Congress Republicans and GOP governors across the nation have pushed hard against the president following Biden’s announcement last week that he was forcing vaccinations of up to 100 million American workers in an effort to curb increase in COVID cases this summer due to the spread of the highly infectious delta. variant.
But Grisham predicted that the next election “will be a referendum on the pandemic.”
And he stated that “what we saw last night in California was an incredible and brilliant example of Americans rejecting the set of incredibly dangerous, negative, inappropriate and ineffective lies, frankly, and want to go back not only to the normalcy, but they want progressive policies in their states and they want governors to be the bulwark against this nonsense, but also the real evil and fear that Republicans continue to promote across the country. “
Maloney agreed, accusing that “California voters really rejected the Republican view that we should do nothing more to end the pandemic. I think this is one of the great foods to take away in California.”
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Reed, a veteran of numerous presidential and Senate Republican Party campaigns, said Republicans running for elections “in equal and competitive parts of the country” later this year and next year must find a balance.
“What they have to do is present themselves as pro-vaccine but anti-mandated,” he stressed. “Vaccines were developed and introduced to the market under a Republican administration. There is no reason why the Republican party should run away from it. It’s okay to be anti-mandate, but to be anti-vaccine as a whole. it will create challenges in blue and in moderate areas of the country. “