Newsom Fends Off Recall

Less than an hour after the polls closed in California yesterday, Gov. Gavin Newsom was declared the winner by the Associated Press, NBC News and CNN. Newsom, a Democrat, fended off an attempt to recall him, easily convincing more than half the voters that he should remain in office.

While it may take several weeks to count all the ballots, by today some 74 percent of the votes cast had been counted giving the governor a wide margin. Out of the more than 9.1 million votes tabulated to date nearly 64 percent supported keeping Newsom in office. The Associated Press estimated that about 13 million of the 22 million registered voters in the state cast ballots, leaving as many as 4 million ballots still to be counted. Newsom, who was overwhelmingly elected governor in 2018 in the heavily blue state, is facing a recall sparked last year mainly over accusations that he mishandled the state’s response to Covid-19.

Voters were asked two questions on the ballot: first, should Newsom be recalled and, second, who should replace him? Of the 46 candidates aiming to replace him, Larry Elder, the conservative Los Angeles talk show host, outpaced the field. At the latest count in heavily Democratic Contra Costa County, 252,879 people voted not to recall the governor while 92,905 voted “yes” to recall him.