Fighting recall, Newsom sets a path Biden may follow
GOP’s anti-vaccine posturing has helped governor with scaring Democrats to polls.
WASHINGTON — For months, President Biden and his aides stepped gingerly when asked about vaccination mandates. They hoped to persuade the hesitant, they said, not further politicize the issue by using the blunt force of federal power.
On Thursday, such reticence went out the window as Biden announced executive actions that would in effect put vaccination or testing mandates in place for about two-thirds of American workers — federal employees and contractors, staff at healthcare facilities, plus all those working for private-sector companies that employ more than 100 people.
“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated,” Biden declared.
A lot led to that shift: The spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus frightened many Americans, slowing the economy and driving down Biden’s standing; the political nature of vaccine resistance meant refusal to take the shots was becoming increasingly a Republican position; and the uptick in vaccination rates in the last month has left the unvaccinated as a smaller minority.
Then there’s the California recall.
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the recall campaign from its inception. Lockdowns and school closures enraged conservative voters. In November, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s much-discussed dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, flouting his own COVID-19 restrictions, provided the spark that lighted the flame.
But in the campaign’s closing weeks, the politics of the pandemic have turned Newsom’s way. He has pounded away at his opponents, warning that the recall could saddle California with an “anti-vax Republican governor.”
Judging by a raft of new polls — plus preemptive mutterings from former President Trump and other recall supporters about a rigged election — Newsom’s strategy of centering his campaign around vaccine requirements is working. And it has provided a lesson for Democrats, including Biden, who is scheduled to campaign with the governor on Monday.
Much like Biden, Newsom started out this year stressing a positive message. The state was bouncing back from a difficult winter of pandemic deaths, he said, his budget would provide payments to millions of households, and under his policies, California had a rosy future.
But as the Delta variant spread, that optimism clashed with an increasingly grumpy mood among voters.
Just over six weeks ago, a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times showed the governor at serious risk of losing the recall election. The problem, the poll found, was widespread Democratic apathy toward the election.
Berkeley’s final preelection poll, released Friday, finds Newsom winning among likely voters 60% to 39%. California voters didn’t suddenly fall in love with the governor. The poll found, for example, that well over half of likely voters think Newsom is a hypocrite.
Newsom’s actions “demonstrated that the strict policies and behaviors that he wants others to follow during the pandemic don’t apply to him,” voters agreed.
But they appear willing to overlook that for larger concerns.
Nearly two-thirds said that “if a conservative Republican were to become governor as a result of the recall election, it would threaten many of the state’s wellestablished policies on issues like climate change, immigration, healthcare and abortion.”
Even more striking, given the role the pandemic played in getting the recall started, almost half of likely voters said the state’s response to the coronavirus have been “about right” and an additional 18% said the state was doing “too little.”
Only about one-third of likely voters said that under Newsom the state was going too far in its efforts to combat the pandemic. That onethird essentially comprises the people voting for the recall, with relatively few others joining them.
Over the last 18 months, in California and nationally, conservative protests against lockdowns and vaccine mandates have generated a lot of headlines and attention. What they haven’t done is generate majorities.
Libertarians will decry the loss of freedom, but when public health is threatened by a contagious illness, people willingly accept expanded government to keep themselves and their children healthy. That was true a century ago when Massachusetts, like roughly a dozen other states, passed a law requiring all residents to be vaccinated against smallpox — a step upheld by the Supreme Court — and it remains true now.
Last month, as White House officials began debating whether to toughen vaccine requirements, Unite the Country, the big pro-Biden super PAC, polled voters in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — the five states that flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020. The poll asked voters whether big companies should require workers to get vaccinated or wear masks and be frequently tested, essentially the policy that under Biden’s new plan the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will now require.
Large majorities in all five states, ranging from 61% to 68%, favored the plan, according to the PAC’s director, Steve Schale. In Arizona and Wisconsin — both states in which Republican lawmakers have actively campaigned against mandates — nearly half of voters said they would “strongly favor” such a requirement, the group found.
Newsom has provided campaign-tested evidence to back up such polling.
Newsom has had two big advantages in his effort. One of them — California’s strong Democratic tilt — isn’t replicable nationwide. The other big plus, however, has been the GOP’s willingness to supply him a foil.
In Newsom’s case, that would be Larry Elder, the radio talk show host who has emerged as the Republican recall front-runner. The more Elder talks about repealing vaccine and masking requirements “before my first cup of tea,” as he said at a recent rally in Fresno, the more Newsom has prospered.
Unlike Newsom, Biden doesn’t have to face voters for more than three years, assuming he runs again at the age of 81. But his party does face a challenging midterm election, and the Newsom playbook of portraying Republicans as a threat to public health is one that Democrats are likely to continue to deploy, whether against Trump, if he becomes actively engaged in the midterm races, or against candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“There are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19. Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities. This is totally unacceptable,” Biden said Thursday.
History continues to favor Republican victories next year. The party in the White House almost always loses seats at midterm.
But in recent years, Republicans have often punted away elections they should have won by nominating candidates who were out of step with the electorate. On vaccines and mask mandates, that’s the history Biden and his party hope will repeat itself.
If it does, Gavin Newsom may have pointed the way.