Dems’ disinterest puts Newsom at risk in recall

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Democratic supporters in the Legislature got what they wanted: an early recall election date of Sept. 14. With much of California returning to prepandemic life — and polls showing continued support for Newsom — they wanted to get it over with fast before another disaster struck.

Now they’ve got to confront the problem they’ve created for themselves: Newsom has even less time to tackle a serious enthusiasm gap. Republicans are excited to give Newsom the boot and Democrats are ... uh ... not paying attention.

“If people don’t turn out this could be a crapshoot and it could turn into a disaster scenario.” Steve Smith, top official with California Labor Federation

Ask Steve Smith. He’s a top official with the California Labor Federation, whose 2 million members regularly do the doortodoor campaign grunt work that turns out voters for Democrats. Last week, it held focus groups on the recall for undecided union members in Oakland, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

The good news that Smith heard: “We didn’t have a single person that said they supported the recall.”

The worrisome news: “In every group, people said, ‘I don’t know if (voting in the recall) is that important. He’s probably going to win anyways.’

“People are completely tuned out,” Smith said.

The message was loud and clear: Newsom’s biggest opponent in the recall won’t be Republicans. It will be uninterested Democrats.

“If people don’t turn out this could be a crapshoot and it could turn into a disaster scenario,” Smith said.

A Berkeley IGS Poll in May backs up the possibility for a Democratic disaster. The survey found that 75% of Republican respondents had a “high interest” in the recall — more than twice the level among Democrats (36%) or independents (35%). Surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California found a similar divergence in enthusiasm.

“It’s a huge gap,” said Eric Schickler, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley and codirector of the Institute of Governmental Studies, which conducted the poll. Republicans “are paying attention, and the Democrats aren’t. (Republicans) are interested in it and following it — and right now the Democrats are not focused on it.” Newsom can take solace that only 36% of the respondents in the Berkeley IGS Poll say they wanted to recall him, the same as in January — a sign that support for the recall hasn’t grown. Other public polls have mirrored that stagnation. The Berkeley survey found 49% didn’t want to recall the governor and 15% were undecided.

But one top California Democratic strategist told me that private polls show Newsom’s lead isn’t that broad. “The Newsom people always think they’re the smartest people in the room, but I have real doubts about (turnout). I don’t think their lead is as big as what the public polling is showing,” said the strategist, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely about fellow Democrats.

Newsom antirecall spokesman Nathan Click told me that the campaign has been preparing for the election for several months. Newsom has raised twice as much — $16.5 million through midJune — as his top Republican challengers combined. He is already spending “multiple millions” every week on TV ads and has sent 9.8 million texts to voters since March.

But even though there are 10.2 million Democrats in California, roughly two times the number of Republicans, challenges remain for Newsom:

Low turnout, big surprises:

Some Democrats saw a warning sign in last week’s East Bay Assembly race to replace Rob Bonta, whom Newsom appointed to replace Xavier Becerra as state attorney general. Similarly to how the recall will be conducted, this race was a special election off the traditional calendar where every voter got a ballot by mail.

Yet only 21% of registered voters actually cast those ballots — and that was in one of California’s most politically engaged districts, which includes 80% of Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro. A surprise result: Janani Ramachandran, a progressive social justice attorney who had never held political office, forced a runoff election with Alameda Unified School District board president Mia Bonta, the attorney general’s wife, by winning 24% of the vote. Bonta won 38%. Ramachadran edged out Malia Vella, who raised far more money, had the backing of top organized labor groups and is the vice mayor of Alameda. Ramachandran “surged from zero support to 24% based on a solid grassroots campaign,” said Eric Jaye, Ramachandran’s consultant. Jaye advised Newsom when he was San Francisco’s mayor and fought against him in the 2018 gubernatorial race when he consulted for former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “She went door to door and her voters were very engaged.”

County election officials will begin mailing each active registered voter a recall ballot no later than Aug. 16. “That’s right in the middle of summer when families are not focused on politics,” said the worried Democratic strategist. Plus, when the electorate shrinks, the voters tend to be older and whiter — the GOP’s core.

TV ain’t all that:

Newsom’s team boasts a TV campaign that his Republican rivals won’t be able to match. While relentless ads may awaken Democrats to the fact that a recall is happening, UC Berkeley’s Schickler said research shows that “TV doesn’t do much to get people to vote. Facetoface conversations are much more effective.”

Hicks promised Friday that “it won’t all be radio ads and TV ads. We’re going to be on the ground.” The California Labor Federation’s Smith said organized labor has been preparing for months to reactivate its field team. They’re ready to put 5,000 to 7,000 volunteers on the street over the next few months to do over 4,000 miles of doortodoor canvassing, which “covers a huge chunk of the state.”

“This is the most consequential campaign for labor in several decades given the role we have to play,” Smith said.

The Trump (non) factor:

Newsom backers reflexively describe the vote as the “Republican recall” and try to link it to the Trump supporters who are funding his removal. But Trump’s name won’t be on the ballot, and namechecking him “affects enthusiasm on both sides,” Schickler said.

Some of this lack of enthusiasm among Democrats, he said, may be because of exhaustion with Trump’s nearconstant presence in the news over the past five years. Invoking his name again may help alert Democrats that there’s an election happening, but Trump is unlikely to have a large effect on coaxing voters to mail their ballots.

The circus doesn’t materialize:

Newsom supporters were counting on the election resembling the circus that evolved around the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. Then — thanks largely to the publicity surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger entering the race — 135 replacement candidates piled into the contest.

“It was like a cast of characters from a Fellini movie,” as Democratic strategist Katie Merrill described it, complete with thenporn star Mary Carey (who listed her chest measurements in her campaign materials), a ferret advocate, a guy who never stopped talking in a fake Australian accent and the comedian Gallagher.

Yes, Carey is running again, along with several dozen others so far. But without Schwarzenegger’s star power to draw nonpolitical media interest and with a short timeline for potential candidates to launch whatever they call a “campaign,” the same sort of circus environment might not recur. That could hurt Newsom’s ability to talk down the recall — and his ability to activate his base against it.

A possible September Surprise:

Just because the recall is earlier doesn’t mean the news will unquestionably be better for Newsom. Another COVID spike could shutter businesses again. The return to school could face unforeseen obstacles. Gas prices could keep surging. And, most likely, there could be a worsethanever wildfire season and power blackouts. Newsom supporters say California voters will rally around their leader during a crisis. He will be able to command unparalleled media attention and have an opportunity to showcase leadership as tensions rise. And it’s not a given how much voters will blame him — the person at the top — for whatever happens, even for disasters he’s not responsible for triggering.

That’s why scheduling an election around good news is like trying to plan a wedding several months in advance — and hoping it doesn’t rain.

Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press An election to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been scheduled for Sept. 14. Democrats have less than three months to rally the ranks for him.