QUESTION FOR NEWSOM RECALL BACKERS: WHY BOTHER?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“QUESTION FOR NEWSOM RECALL BACKERS: WHY BOTHER?”

 

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a bit less than two years left on his second term and cannot run for another. That’s a central difference between today’s political reality and the scene that faced organizers of the Newsom recall campaign that failed by a wide margin to oust him in 2021.

 

Here's some further reality: The current recall effort, which must gather more than 1.31 million valid voter signatures within 160 days of starting circulation on Jan. 23, would see a replacement governor guaranteed only a year or less in office. No one can do much in that short time.

 

This does not daunt organizers of the current recall, the eighth attempt to oust Newsom since his election in 2018. The 2021 effort is the only one to reach a vote so far, and Newsom slapped it down by a 3 million vote margin, a complete reversal of what happened when ex-Gov. Gray Davis was dumped in 2003.

 

Davis faced the famed muscleman actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in that vote, with just one significant Democrat on the list of potential replacements. That was then-Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who had nothing like Schwarzenegger’s star power.

 

By contrast, there were no major celebrities among possible Newsom replacements in 2021, when ultra-conservative pundit and talk show host Larry Elder took 48 percent of replacement votes.

 

None of this daunts the current organizers. They want Newsom out, the sooner the better, and they hope to bludgeon him with his alleged poor leadership before, during and after the January firestorms in Los Angeles County.

 

They’ve also said they want to prevent him from using his current office to set up a 2028 run for president. They’re heartened by needing about 400,000 fewer voter signatures than in 2021 because of a low 2022 general election turnout.

 

Newsom, as he has done with most recall efforts, is so far ignoring this one. Organizers say they will try to hold him responsible for crime, homelessness, cost of living increases and supposedly excessive business regulation.

 

Those complaints are essentially the same used in 2021, and they didn’t succeed then.

 

In any case, the actual stakes are much smaller in this recall. If its petition circulation effort succeeds, signatures will be submitted to county officials around the state in mid-summer. It will then take about two months to verify that enough are genuine to qualify the recall for the ballot.

 

If the timetable matches 2021, when signature verification ended April 29 and the vote came Sept. 14, the new vote would likely take place sometime in late October or early November, the intervening time used for replacement candidates to sign up and campaign a bit. At the end, any potential new governor would have only about one year before the 2026 general election. Would that be enough time to become an established incumbent?

 

If such a recall were successful, it would surely eliminate  Newsom from running for president, which he’s thought to be planning after he’s termed out in early 2027.

 

But if Newsom fends off a recall vote, he could enter the 2028 race on a roll, perhaps even as a national Democratic hero. Meanwhile, the recall would need to raise at least $15 million to have any chance. 

 

Should Newsom lose, he would not be the first Californian whose political career was essentially ended by a crisis. One example was then-Gov. Pat Brown, vacationing in Greece and unable to respond promptly when the Watts riot broke out in 1965. He lost his reelection bid the next year. So did then-Lt. Gov. Glenn Anderson, in charge while Brown was gone and criticized for being slow to call out the National Guard. Both were Democrats.

 

Today's organizers are heartened by the success of two recall ousters in recent years, campaigns that toppled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022 and axed Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao last fall.

 

All of which means that even if he won’t formally acknowledge this recall bid until and unless it qualifies for a vote, Newsom would be wise to take it seriously and perhaps even exploit it.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net