Besieged Newsom may recover if state does
Few governors have soared quite as high or plunged as low in the public’s eye during the pandemic as Gavin Newsom.
He’s gone from being nationally lauded on prominent political stops like ABC’s “The View” in May for doing “an amazing job” to the brink of being the first California governor to face a recall in 18 years. In January, with the state’s coronavirus infection rate peaking, Newsom’s approval rating dropped precipitously in a Berkeley IGS Poll, prompting some Democrats to worry that he could be vulnerable to being ousted by voters before his first term ends.
But those fears may have been premature. Some analysts believe Newsom hit rock bottom when the state’s pandemic situation did, and that his fortunes will improve if the state has already seen its worst days.
The only way he gets dragged down again, in their view, is if California mismanages another surge or bungles the vaccine distribution as the rest of the coun
try gets its shots, or if students aren’t back in classrooms at least most of the time by fall.
Newsom just received a political cushion in the form of $42.6 billion in aid coming to state and local governments in California from the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package. That will prevent many cuts to local services and could give Californians the feeling that life is returning to what it was before the pandemic struck.
“You won’t have a lot of budget cuts, and he can sprinkle that money around,” said veteran Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta.
That January poll “may have captured a low point for the governor,” said Eric Schickler, codirector of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, which conducted the survey. It found that 46% of registered voters approved of Newsom’s performance as governor — down from 64% in September — while 48% disapproved.
“It was a confluence of frustration that voters were feeling at that point in the pandemic,” Schickler said.
The number of COVID19 cases was high, restrictions on businesses and restaurants had returned, the vaccine rollout was going poorly, some hospitals were overflowing, and most public schools were still closed for inperson leaning.
“There was a general frustration that the state didn’t have its act together,” Schickler said. “But reality has shifted significantly, and he’s pushing a more clear message and being more active talking about what he’s doing” to address the pandemic.
But Newsom still has damage to repair. The governor who became a national star when California’s infection rate was low transformed into the focal point for the public’s frustration with the pace of the recovery.
Recall organizers say gathering signatures to oust Newsom became easier after The Chronicle reported that the governor had dined at the ritzy French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley with a lobbyist friend and more people than his own administration recommended for gatherings.
Republicans portrayed him as elitist and above following his own rules. The moment crystallized the anger that many Californians were feeling after being locked in their homes for months, and that vitriol showed in the polls.
“Dr. (Mark) Ghaly’s not on the ballot,” Acosta said, referring to the state’s health and human services secretary. “Your county health director is not on the ballot. That’s that problem the governor has — he has to eat all this.”
For now, at least. If the worst of the pandemic is over, the worst of the political damage to Newsom could be, too.
“I think that governors get a lot of blame for what’s going on that is not in their control, and get a lot of credit for what’s not in their control,” said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Its poll in January showed that Newsom’s approval rating had dipped to 52% among likely voters, roughly what it was before the pandemic.
Online: Read more of our special reports on a year of the pandemic. SFChronicle.com
“I don’t think he’s in trouble at this point,” Baldassare said. “His approval numbers have dropped from the stratosphere during the early days of the pandemic (64% in May 2020) when people’s hopes were placed on their governor rather than their president in Washington.
“These next few months,” Baldassare said, “will be very telling in how people view the governor.”
Here are some factors that will shape Newsom’s future over those months:
When will schools reopen?
Newsom cut a deal with the Legislature this month to offer $2 billion in incentives to school districts that bring at least some students back by March 31. The move was criticized by some teachers and administrators as favoring wealthier districts that were more able to put safety measures in place quickly. But it helped to spur productive conversations about returning to class, said Bob Nelson, superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District.
“The message that he sent in this last piece of legislation was that we needed to get back to school. I think that really helped him a lot,” Nelson said. “I don’t think the money was the push there (for school districts). I think it is addressing the level of inertia that was there.”
Getting back in class “goes a long way toward feeling better about where we’re at. But it does not approximate normalcy,” said Nelson, whose district will bring some students back to classrooms in early April. He said he “fully expects” students to return in the fall.
Will the federal money help?
One of the many factors that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 was that “the budget was upside down,” Acosta said. “All that people heard was ‘dysfunction in Sacramento.’ ”
That is not the case this year. Even without the federal stimulus money, the state had a $15 billion surplus after tax revenues came in better than expected.
“Where governors get in trouble is when the budget news gets bad, and it affects local government and services,” Baldassare said. “This governor seems to have been spared this.”
Will Democratic unity hold? Some Democrats in the Legislature have criticized Newsom for bigfooting them on emergency spending and not communicating well with them through the pandemic. San Jose Assembly Member Evan Low said he learned that Newsom was lifting the state’s stayathome order in January when he checked his Twitter feed.
Others said some of Newsom’s moves seemed aimed more at generating positive headlines than achieving anything, such as an economic task force he convened in April to chart the state’s postpandemic course.
It was filled with big names: San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, future Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Walt Disney Co. boss Bob Iger. The group took seven months to come up with a report that was largely ignored.
In recent weeks, as the likelihood of the recall qualifying for the ballot has grown, Democrats have closed ranks. In the past week, groups of Asian American and LGBTQ officeholders and activists have held events praising Newsom and denouncing the recall as a partisan attack.
Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who remains popular in California after winning the state’s 2020 Democratic primary, denounced the recall last week as the work of “extremist Republicans” and said, “We must all unite to oppose the recall.”
For now, no Democrats have said they would run as a replacement candidate. Many Democrats recall that Davis was hurt in 2003 when his lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, ran as a replacement candidate in the recall, siphoning the party’s energy from preserving Davis.
Newsom doesn’t have that worry. So far.