The analysts can spin it however they want. Why are they comparing a gov. recall to Presidential results? Why aren't they comparing it to Newsom's prior results?
In a Dem wave year Newsom actually fared slightly worse than this time. So on the one hand it's a couple points worse than the Biden win, on the other it's a couple points better than the Newsom win. This says to me that there is no massive red wave building like people think.
The fact that Democrats overcame an enthusiasm advantage, at least based on what he summer polling suggested, is enough for me not to consider this an underperformance. Not even close. History suggests that the recall should have done better in an environment where Republicans would be galvanized and Democrats complacent, but the opposite happened. There is no good news for Republicans in this race, no matter how hard they try to polish this turd of theirs. Really they just want to make excuses so they never have to change their electoral strategies.
