Recall Election: Preliminary Results Show Gavin Newsom Likely to Remain Governor of California

Preliminary results of the 2021 gubernatorial recall election are in—Gavin Newsom is likely not recalled and will remain governor of California. Around 68.2 percent of people voted “no” in the election, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office, while 31.8 percent voted “yes.”

Larry Elder has received the most votes at 41.1 percent for who would replace Newsom if he is recalled.

In the 2018 gubernatorial election, Gov. Gavin Newsom was elected by the widest margin in an election race since 1950. Since his time in office, Newsom has faced criticism for his decisions to close prisons, suspend the death penalty, enforce vaccine mandates, and enforce COVID-19 statewide restrictions.

The grassroots effort to recall the governor began in 2020, more than a year before the recall petition cleared on June 23, 2021 and state officials confirmed there were over 1,495,709 signatures, the amount required to hold a special recall election.

In previous interviews with The Epoch Times, recall organizers attributed the impetus of the recall campaign to the governor’s decisions regarding COVID-19 state-mandated shutdowns and restrictions.

At the height of the pandemic in Nov. 2020, Newsom received backlash after attending a party at the French Laundry restaurant without wearing a mask and with visitors from multiple households—despite telling state residents to stay home and avoid holiday gatherings.

Following the French Laundry incident, county registrar offices reported an increase of recall petition signatures by 596,721.

As the pandemic continued, California continued to release unemployment funds to residents whose jobs have been lost due to the pandemic. As those eligible received additional funds, it was discovered more than $31 billion in EDD funds were claimed by scammers, including prison inmates.

Postal workers (with keys) stealing mail-in ballots right out of big mailboxes, hundreds of people (mostly Republicans) showing up at polls and being told, “you’ve already voted”, ballots designed to obscure Larry’s name so they have to be “hand-counted”, plus the election machinery in 90% of the state being in Democrat hands...

I could go on, but you get the idea. Realistically, there was never more than a very faint chance that Larry would win. But, hey! It was fun giving the Rats conniption fits. Ya gotta take your humor where you can find it these days.

Old saying that bears repeating:

“You can’t beat a crook at his own game.”

My own observation:

You need to change the game. Clean up the election process.

Maybe there is some court process that can give relief. I suspect someone will try.

Appears to not even be close. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured in to successfully take the focus off the recall and Newsom himself - and of course a massive turnout push funded by this cash in the Dem strongholds, of which there are far more than GOP in that state, with mailed ballots unrequested with cars going around collecting the ballots in mass quantitites.

The Democrats were also smart this time not to put up their own prominent candidate. Last time around, Cruz Bustamente ran and it ended becoming an afterthought that Gray Davis was awful and should be recalled by a majority including enough Democrats who had a viable candidate to also choose to vote to replace, and then the race was mainly between Schwarzeneggar and Bustamente. Gray Davis should go - now who should replace him was the narrative which shaped the race.

This time, that dynamic did not exist with only token Democrats running. The race was cast as a vote against “right wing extremism” to vote against recall by the entire media as well as the massive campaign spending, and whatever steam it had fizzled out as it was no longer a referendum on Newsom with the main battle being who should be the replacement...it was all “Elder is a right wing nutcase” all the time.

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