Gaines, Hewitt get very little in recall
Two prominent elected officials who represent portions of the Inland Empire were in the running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the event a majority of California voters voted to approve the recall of the governor.
Ted Gaines, a former state legislator and current member of the California Board of Equalization, is in some sense the highest-level elected Republican in the state.
Gaines represents the
First District on the Board of Equalization, which includes much of San Bernardino and stretches toward the border with Oregon. For the most part, Gaines’ campaign was uneventful. As of this writing, Gaines received just 33,289 votes in his favor.
Likewise, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Hewitt, best known as one of the few elected Libertarians in an office of significance, failed to get much traction in his bid to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Hewitt has been a notable critic of California’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic, spurring contentious meetings at the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.
However, despite this and his efforts to persuade Californians to go outside of the two major parties, Hewitt received just 34,848 votes as of this writing.
Combined, Gaines and Hewitt received barely enough votes to crack the top 10 of vote-getters, with a combined 1.4% of the vote.
Reality television show personality Caitlyn Jenner and an assortment of candidates with no meaningful political profile performed better than Gaines and Hewitt.
Given the relatively low-visibility campaigns, it’s unclear how distracted from their current jobs they were. But on the other hand, with the recall now a thing of the past, both face an uncertain political future.
Gaines entered his current office with just 52% of the vote in 2018. Meanwhile, Hewitt probably faces the most serious challenge to his office heading into 2022. Moreno Valley Mayor Yxstian Gutierrez is in the running to challenge Hewitt to represent District 5 on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and is sure to be a strong contender.
Considering neither Gaines nor Hewitt gained much political capital from their recall campaigns, we encourage them to focus on the offices they were elected to serve.