Gavin Newsom used threat of COVID, Larry Elder to defeat recall

Recall backers collected more than 1.7 million signatures to force an election.

They reminded voters again and again that Gov. Gavin Newsom had dined at the upscale French Laundry restaurant in Napa wine country with lobbyists while he was telling other Californians not to gather.

One candidate for Newsom’s job even assembled a giant ball of trash to depict the condition of the state under the Democratic governor’s leadership.

In the end, none of it worked.

Newsom claimed victory as results showed 67% of voters opposing the recall, with 33% in support.

“Tonight I’m humble. Grateful,” he said, speaking at state Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento. “Thank you for rejecting this recall.”

Newsom propelled Democratic turnout with a play to his base and relied on his party’s large registration advantage to avoid becoming the second California governor to lose his job.

Recall supporters initially launched the recall effort over Newsom’s liberal policies on immigration and his moratorium on the death penalty, but in the end the race became all about the pandemic.

Recall advocates argued as they gathered signatures that Newsom had overreached, shutting down California’s economy in his effort to fight COVID-19. They pointed as a model to Florida, which took a less aggressive approach and had a lower unemployment rate.

By mid-summer, however, the delta variant was driving another wave of infections, filling Florida’s emergency rooms. Newsom began arguing that California would suffer the same fate as the Sunshine State if it followed Florida’s lead.

His ads hammered home that Republicans seeking to replace him opposed vaccine requirements he imposed for school staff and health workers. He pointed out that they promised to rescind the mandates.

Conservative talk show host Larry Elder emerged as Newsom’s likely replacement, moving the state’s liberal voters from apathetic about the election to invested in the outcome.

In the days before the election, Newsom argued all those changing factors may have obscured the most important constant in the race: Democrats who compose the largest voting bloc in California largely still supported him.

He just had to get them to return their ballots.

Despite California’s reputation as a liberal stronghold, polling that found lackluster interest from Democratic voters showed the race neck-and-neck during the second half of the summer.

Newsom appeared dour during a July interview with McClatchy’s California editorial boards, questioning whether fellow Democrats were fully considering the possibility he might lose.

“I don’t think the national Democratic Party’s asking themselves that question,” Newsom said at the time. “If this was a successful recall, I think it would have profound consequences nationwide.”

His mood lightened as national Democrats from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to former President Barack Obama cut commercials on his behalf and his poll numbers rose. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to California to make his case. At campaign stops in the Bay Area last week, he appeared upbeat and confident, pumping up crowds of volunteers.

Larry Elder changed election

In an interview Friday with The Sacramento Bee after he voted at the California Museum in downtown Sacramento, Newsom noted he had backing from many Democrats all along.

“It may be Elder, it may be Florida, it may be a combination of all these factors,” Newsom told The Sacramento Bee in an interview Friday, speculating about the reasons he thought he would win. “It may actually not be as dynamic as it appears.”

Yet Elder, he said, “sharpened the focus of the consequential nature of this election.”

Elder gave the Newsom campaign kindling to light a fire under liberal voters with his conservative positions against the minimum wage, abortion and hiring discrimination protections for women. The rise of Elder, who supported the former president, helped Newsom argue the recall was being pushed by Trump Republicans.

“What changed between July and now? One thing: @larryelder,” John Burke, spokesman for Republican candidate Kevin Faulconer, wrote on Twitter last week. “He’s been a gift to @GavinNewsom.”

As the threat of a conservative replacement buoyed Newsom’s campaign, the Democratic governor also protected his left flank by discouraging any other prominent Democrats from entering the race.

The top-polling Democratic candidate, YouTuber Kevin Paffrath, ran a first-time campaign to Newsom’s right, framing himself as a more centrist alternative but failing to raise the kind of campaign cash he would have needed to run a formidable statewide race.

Absent a serious threat from his own party, his campaign’s job was simple, Newsom said. Just convince people to vote “no.” In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one, it proved a winning strategy.

The campaign used its $70 million in campaign funds to run statewide ads bashing Elder and highlighting the threat of rolling back COVID-19 restrictions.

Gavin Newsom up for reelection

Meanwhile, Newsom’s strategists built up “perhaps the most robust field campaign ever seen,” campaign manager Juan Rodriguez told reporters.

The campaign began partnering with community organizations starting in late May, campaign adviser Courtni Pugh said. It worked with about 90 community organizations, including Service Employees International Union, the Million Voters Project, Mi Familia Vota and Voto Latino. The campaign hired 1,200 paid staff and made about 20,000 door knocks and calls per week.

In the final weeks, unions provided much of the volunteer manpower for door-to-door canvassing and phone banking efforts. In the final four days of voting, union members made up many of the roughly 25,000 volunteers for the anti-recall campaign who worked to turn out voters, according to the California Labor Federation.

Unions were also the biggest financial contributors to Newsom’s anti-recall campaign. His anti-recall committee reported more than $18 million in donations from unions, including Service Employees International Union, the California Teachers Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

In the end, Newsom retained majority support from all the state’s major ethnic groups, pollsters at UC Berkeley found.

Newsom’s most visible misstep during the pandemic was his November attendance at the lobbyist’s birthday party at the French Laundry, where the governor dined maskless with multiple other families even as he urged other Californians to avoid gathering for the holidays.

In the Berkeley poll released last week, 56% of voters said they thought Newsom behaved as though his own rules didn’t apply to him. But 60% said they opposed the recall anyway.

Newsom won’t have long to recover before he hits the campaign trail again. He’ll face voters again in June during the state’s regularly scheduled primary election.

But his victory over the recall puts him in a stronger position than he was before, former Gov. Jerry Brown argued last week in an interview on CNN.

“The recall, paradoxically, is going to strengthen Gov. Newsom and what he’s trying to do,” he said.

This story was originally published September 15, 2021 at 12:25 AM with the headline "Gavin Newsom used threat of COVID, Larry Elder to defeat recall."