California’s Democratic Governor is in the fight for his political life.
Faced with the first recall election in nearly two decades, Newsom is reeling in the polls.
And now, things just went from bad to worse for him and the California Democratic Party.
California is known as one of the bluest states in the country.
A longtime bastion for liberal politics, the Golden State has been in control of the Democratic Party for decades, with Democrats having won every Presidential election in the state since 1992, and every statewide election since 2006.
The situation in California is so uncompetitive that Republicans in the state are even outnumbered by registered Independents, and longtime Republican strongholds like San Diego and Orange County have begun to vote for Democrats in recent years.
But the Democratic Party may have finally reached the high water mark of their power.
The tide appears to be turning in California, with a new recall effort against embattled Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom gaining steam, with petitioners collecting over 1.1 million signatures in their quest to oust Newsom from office.
Yahoo reports, “Almost 1.1 million signatures have been submitted in support of a recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom, state elections officials reported Friday, though supporters said a sizable number of voter petitions have yet to be reviewed as the effort approaches next month’s official deadline.”
“The tally released by Secretary of State Shirley Weber shows that 1,094,457 signatures had been turned in as of Feb. 5, with 668,202 confirmed as valid. One factor in favor of recall backers is the relatively low rate of rejected signatures. Only about 16% of those that have been checked for accuracy were rejected, significantly better than most ballot measure campaigns in recent years.”
The recall effort was triggered by Newsom’s record of locking down California’s economy during the Coronavirus outbreak, and a series of seemingly double-faced regulations and rules imposed on state business owners, churches, schools, and families.
Many of these regulations, which Newsom claimed were needed to stop the spread of the virus, were instead used to shut down churches and small businesses.
At the same time, Democratic politicians in the state, including Nancy Pelosi and even Newsom himself, have been caught in recent months violating the very restrictions they have put into place and championed against other California residents.
This combined with a collapsing economy, a declining business environment in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, and a crime wave larger than anything California has seen in years, helped to trigger the recall efforts.
“As a snapshot in time, the report issued by Weber could fail to fully capture the political risk faced by the Democratic governor, under fire over his efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic by what recent polls have shown is a growing cross section of Californians,” adds Yahoo.
The deadline to submit petitions to trigger the recall election is March 17th, with the petition organizers already claiming they have the necessary number of signatures to force a special election to replace the Governor.
A potential recall election against Governor Newsom would be the first serious political test Democrats would face following the inauguration of President Joe Biden and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in Washington, D.C.
