Newsom’s vaccine tour counters recall
SACRAMENTO » California Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent the past two weeks doing a vaccination road show, traveling to inoculation sites to tout the state’s rapidly improving coronavirus numbers and efforts to build an infrastructure to provide millions of shots every week.
It’s a good showcase for the governor who is barely two years into his first term but has seen his popularity fall and a recall election become increasingly likely.
The six-stop tour serves the dual purpose of informing the public about his administration’s vaccination efforts while presenting a campaign-friendly image of an in-charge executive.
At each stop, he’s been flanked by fellow elected officials, mostly Democrats, who praise his leadership. And while Newsom has barely commented publicly
about the recall effort, those at his appearances didn’t need any prodding to reject the idea of turning him out of office.
“Gov. Newsom has done an outstanding job for the state of California,” Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said Wednesday, as Newsom toured a vaccination clinic in the
Coachella Valley. “Obviously there’s differences of opinion, but at the end of the day, the way I see it, this man has stood up for us, for the underserved, and we do our part as well to stand up for him.”
Congressman Raul Ruiz, a doctor who represents the area, said Newsom “saved millions of lives with his early, decisive decisions.”
That Democrats feel the need to praise the governor so effusively may underscore the seriousness of the recall effort and the desire for the party to show a united front, said Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The tour gives Newsom a chance to “remind voters that there is this team of Democratic lawmakers, officials, who are working together rather than quibbling with one another,” Schickler said.
Republican recall organizers say they’ve gathered more than the 1.5 million signatures they need to force a vote on whether the governor deserves to keep his job. Most of those signatures still need to be verified and inevitably some will be thrown out, but organizers have another month to keep gathering.