The 2021 California Recall (Part 3): Results
Democrats devise their defensive strategy heading into 2022.
We can safely say that Gov. Gavin Newsom has survived the recall election.
To be clear, the results of the election are currently unofficial. Election law in California gives each county until October 15, 2021 to report their final vote total to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then must summarize and certify the election results by October 22.
The results published below were as of 7:30AM PDT on Sept 16th when a total of 9,263,554 ballots have been counted. (News outlets estimate that this is roughly 72% of the expected total vote.) I’ll be sure to do a more comprehensive review in late October once the results are finalized. UPDATE: That review is linked here!
Topline Takeaways
Democrats displayed their strength in California as more than 60% of voters rejected the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Voters in support of the recall unified behind Larry Elder. He came incredibly close to winning a majority of the vote on the second question as Gov. Gavin Newsom asked his supporters to skip picking a replacement.
Enthusiasm isn’t everything. While energized Republicans helped turn the recall into a reality, no amount of energy could help them overcome their 2-to-1 disadvantage against Democrats in California.
According to unofficial tallies, 64% of voters in the recall election supported keeping Gavin Newsom in office and voted NO on the first recall question. Voting patterns in the recall mostly mirrored those seen in the 2020 matchup of Biden v. Trump, with some notable exceptions. There were a total of four counties that “flipped” between the 2020 general election and the 2021 gubernatorial recall.
The four “flipped” counties, Butte, Fresno, Inyo and Stanislaus, all voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and voted YES to oust the Democratic governor, signalling minor Republican gains in the state. All of these counties lie in the central “swing” areas of the state where county margins are typically close: two of them (Butte and Inyo) supported Donald Trump in 2016 and flipped to Biden in 2020. While the recall proved that progressive politics lead to votes along the coast, it also proved that the landlocked center of the state prefers moderate candidates favor Biden over more progressive candidates like Newsom.
Larry Elder was overwhelmingly the replacement candidate of choice across the state, pulling in roughly 47% of voters who answered the second question on the ballot. Elder won every single county except for San Francisco who opted to support Democrat Kevin Paffrath instead. (Paffrath currently sits in second place statewide with 9.8% of the vote.)
It’s incredibly important to note that a large plurality of voters did not answer both questions on the ballot, skewing the results on the second question. Of the 9.2 million ballots counted so far only 5.1 million chose to pick a replacement candidate, meaning roughly 45% of the electorate skipped the second question altogether, just as Gavin Newsom’s campaign requested of its supporters. Newsom’s campaign also loudly fought off Democratic challengers and informally encouraged California’s Democratic party members to stand behind Newsom rather than enter the fray, even as a “plan B” should the governor be recalled.
These tactics of reducing response rates for the second question and dissuading Democratic challengers from emerging makes gleaning insight from the second question difficult as it doesn’t quite resemble your average election environment.
Forecasting the Future: Taking these caveats into account, counties that ultimately rejected the recall were where the most prominent Democrat on the ticket, Kevin Paffrath came in second. Counties that supported the recall lifted their regional candidates into the second place slot behind Elder. Kevin Kiley is a member of the California State Assembly that represents the northeastern suburbs of Sacramento and saw much of his support land in the state’s northern counties. Meanwhile, former San Diego Governor Kevin Faulconer saw his support concentrated in the state’s southern counties closer to San Diego. Many of the candidates on the recall ballot are expected to run again in next year’s regularly scheduled gubernatorial election at the end of Gavin Newsom’s term. This map may provide a sneak peek into upcoming primaries as it helps shape the contours of where each candidates’ base of support lies.
The Bottom Line
The recall exposes Republicans’ campaign strategy as 2022 approaches. Today’s Republican party is energized and incredibly adept at creating enthusiasm. The recall election only took place due to Republicans’ ability to organize, collect signatures and field candidates. Once the election date was set and polling data began to circulate, a pervasive distrust in polling led election watchers to overvalue the enthusiasm they were seeing among the Republican base, leading many to believe the race was more competitive than it ultimately was. But enthusiasm doesn’t directly translate to votes. While it may make the necessary difference in swing states, optimistic quotes and raucous rallies mean very little for Republicans in a state where they’re outnumbered 2-to-1.
The recall exposes Donald Trump’s status as a political albatross for the party. Larry Elder was not the political boogeyman that news outlets are making him out to be. Most of the frontrunners on the ballot tripped over each other to espouse their Trumpian qualities to rally the conservative base, just as Elder did. Caitlyn Jenner directly engaged in a Trump-like provocateur political strategy from Day 1, sharing controversial opinions on wedge issues to grab headlines and increase her political profile. Kevin Kiley promised to end vaccine and mask mandates in a state where nearly 60% of voters support such measures. John Cox schlepped around a fully-grown Kodiak bear to his campaign stops, sparking protests and lawsuits from animal rights’ activists. You really think Republicans would have been better off with any of these other candidates instead?
Larry Elder was not the “perfect foil” for Democrats, today’s Republican Party is the perfect foil for Democrats, largely thanks to Donald Trump. Nearly all of the feasible Republican replacement candidates would have succumbed to the same fate as Elder specifically because the conservative voting base primarily lifts up Trumpian candidates that make even moderate, independent voters recoil. (And this Trumpian tilt still happened without the ‘fealty test’ of a primary, unlike the upcoming elections in 2022.) Meanwhile, Democrats are looking on to 2022 with a growing sense of optimism because they’re beginning to see the writing on the wall that Republicans can’t seem to read. Donald Trump lost in 2020 and did not win a majority of the popular vote in 2016. While his endorsement may be golden in states that would vote for literally anyone with an “R” next to their name, he’s a continued liability in Democratic strongholds even after leaving office. This recall, alongside upcoming gubernatorial elections in deep-blue Virginia and New Jersey, will give rise to the Democrats’ defensive strategy for 2022: keep blue seats blue by invoking their opponents’ most Trumpian qualities, especially if their opponents wear their “Trumpiness” as a badge of honor.
Justin, great observations. One thing that I'd like to add is that the GOP framed the recall at least in part on Newsom's handing of the pandemic. The red/blue map of the election results mirrors the map of California's infection rates, red counties having higher rates than blue.