Dire warning helped turn Calif. recall tide
Possibility of GOP win energized Newsom’s Democratic base
LOS ANGELES – An ominous fourword message issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign on the morning of Aug. 5 served as the shock Democrats needed to take seriously a recall election that could remove him from office: “This recall is close.”
Newsom’s warning in a fundraising email came just days after a poll indicated the once-popular Democratic governor who was elected in a 2018 landslide was facing the unthinkable prospect of losing his job in a state that hadn’t elected a Republican in a statewide race in 15 years.
The race is “close enough to start thinking about what it’d be like if we had a Republican governor in California. Sorry to put the thought in your head, but it’s true,” Newsom’s campaign wrote.
The alarmist message was quickly incorporated into Newsom’s remarks on the campaign trail – he was in serious trouble, he warned. The sequence of events combined to create a turning point in the race and helped energize California’s dominant Democratic voters, who until then appeared to be greeting the contest with a collective shrug.
Newsom on Tuesday easily turned back the attempt to retire him less than three years into his first term. Incomplete returns showed him headed toward a landslide win with about 65% of the vote.
A major lesson of Newsom’s decisive win is “you can wake up the base,” Newsom strategist Sean Clegg said this week. “The base may start out asleep … but you can wake up the base.”
Newsom’s victory also provides him with a dramatic comeback story that he is likely to employ as he seeks to broaden his popularity in advance of a 2022 reelection race, while seeking to return his name into discussion about future presidential candidates.
Concentrating the narrative on the threat of a Republican upset in the nation’s most populous state “became a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the more you talk about it being close, the more (Democrats) pay attention,” said Los Angeles-based Democratic consultant Michael Trujillo, who was not involved in the campaign.
For Democrats, the fear of losing the California governor’s seat also opened up national fundraising pipelines that gave Newsom a vast cash advantage over his rivals. That concern also provided a connection point with minority communities about how their lives could change with a conservative Republican governor in Sacramento.
Newsom also benefited at other critical junctures of the campaign with strategy decisions by his campaign and other factors involving happenstance or even luck.
The state collected an astounding windfall of tax dollars that resulted in a record surplus, allowing Newsom to dispense billions in funding for an array of programs, from cleaning up trash to early education and homelessness.
In what Democrats said was a fortunate turn for Newsom, the election was reshuffled when conservative talk show host Larry Elder entered the race in July. The lawyer and author who could have become the state’s first Black governor quickly emerged as Newsom’s chief foil.
Elder came to the race with conservative-libertarian principles that were out of step with many of the state’s left-leaning voters.