CA GOV 2021 - 2022 megathread

[Holmes]

I don’t think “actually it’s not good to compare the recall election to Newsom’s original election” is a good take and I don’t think it needed a three paragraph post talking about it.

And to say the 2018 gubernatorial election wasn’t nationalized is also ridiculous. It was. It was 2018. Everything was about Trump.

[Alben Barkley]

I don’t think “actually it’s not good to compare the recall election to Newsom’s original election” is a good take and I don’t think it needed a three paragraph post talking about it.

And to say the 2018 gubernatorial election wasn’t nationalized is also ridiculous. It was. It was 2018. Everything was about Trump.

You're right it didn't need it... but I'm nothing if not thorough lol

[Devout Centrist]

People here are writing analyses based on 67-33 No being the final result, which would be pretty bad but it doesn't seem like that's actually what the outcome was here.

No, no, no, you are writing analysis based on this wish fulfillment project of somehow translating these results into a Republican wave in 2022. You've written far more WORDS than all of the red avvies here combined!

Realistically, this outcome is pretty detached from the wider political scene. It looks like Newsom may fall just short of 2018? Whatever, turnout was lower among some key Dem groups anyhow. Probably doesn't change the congressional picture all that much. Still rooting for 48-4, but we shall see what the 'independent' redistricters come up with.

[UncleSam]

Hot take: we should wait to see what the actual margins are before writing analyses based on them. The margin will be pretty telling as to the national environment, but clearly Dems are still highly popular in safe D states, no surprises there.

[H. Ross Peron]

Lol

https://twitter.com/AstorAaron/status/1437978736876470275?s=20

Based low-income Korean and Vietnamese seniors voting for rental aid and Covid restrictions.

(To their credit, most Asian Trump supporters have been largely supportive of Covid regulations such as masking and have been vaccinated at overwhelmingly high rates)

[Vosem]

People here are writing analyses based on 67-33 No being the final result, which would be pretty bad but it doesn't seem like that's actually what the outcome was here.

No, no, no, you are writing analysis based on this wish fulfillment project of somehow translating these results into a Republican wave in 2022. You've written far more WORDS than all of the red avvies here combined!

Realistically, this outcome is pretty detached from the wider political scene. It looks like Newsom may fall just short of 2018? Whatever, turnout was lower among some key Dem groups anyhow. Probably doesn't change the congressional picture all that much. Still rooting for 48-4, but we shall see what the 'independent' redistricters come up with.

I've written a comparison of this result to the last statewide election in California and been met with angry exclamation points

I imagine turnout was lower among some key GOP groups too, and that turnout will remain lowered in 2022 given historical patterns. More so elsewhere than in California given reforms to the election law there (if not "ballot harvesting", what should it be called? I haven't noticed an alternate Democratic term for the practice).

I wrote (on AAD, and I'll find it if you like) that this would be a good result for the GOP if they could come within 22 points and a bad one if they were under 30. It looks like it'll be somewhere around the line between good and mediocre. Obviously a great result for Gavin Newsom himself, but I don't think this is a particularly impressive victory for the Democrats. No moving the goalposts of any sort. Just because Woodbury or whoever thought Elder would win outright doesn't mean everyone did.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

In other news, Inyo County just flipped to Yes

2,514 (50.8%) to 2,431 votes (49.2%).

A little disappointing, but still much better than Newsom's 2018 performance (44.7 - 55.3)

[Antonio the Sixth]

GAVINSLIDE HERE WE GOOOOO

At this point even with the remaining ED votes, it's hard to see Yes even cracking 40%. Absolutely devastating for the clowns who pushed this, and further proof that California is and will remain a one-party state for the foreseeable future.

[Blair]

I’m here too dunk on the Atlas political strategists who said they should have ran a top tier democrat too! The curse of Atlas political advice strikes again

[politicallefty]

Well...

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1429865259804790784

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

COMMENT: Relative to Trump-2020, Yes has picked up at least 3 counties (Butte, Stanislaus, Fresno), and is clearly on track to pick up 2 more where No is currently up very little and the E-Day vote isn't in yet (Merced, Inyo). Riverside also seems likelier than not (if it has the same shift as Orange just did, that'll flip it); if that goes too, the county map looks better than Newsom/Cox 2018 even if the final margin is worse.

1. Obviously things will look a little more clear later in the week and it's fun to see colors flip on a map, but that's not the entire picture and the current margins don't seem like it'll the remaining votes will add up to that big of a collapse compared to 2018.

Combined totals in Butte/Stanislaus/Fresno/Merced/Inyo/Riverside

2018:   Newsom 49.4% - 50.6%
~2021:           No 51.5% - 48.5%  (As of Midnight PST)

Gloating about the flips is like seeing all the IE Republicans gloating about Cox holding on to the Obama/Clinton-won Riverside County in 2018. I'm sure the CA GOP was thrilled of winning Riverside by 2,400 votes after having won it by 21,000 votes four years prior.


2. I'd love to know the reaction of a California Republican in 2004 when you tell them that Bush +15 counties like Fresno, Stanislaus, Riverside & f**king INYO possibly voting to narrowly recall the Democratic Governor & former Mayor of San Francisco is actually a great sign for the future of the CA GOP in 2021.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Well...

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1429865259804790784

This was the one thing Nate Silver was any good at, averaging polls shortly before a general election, and he still screwed it up.

[emailking]

He was right that it was a decent chance at the point of that post, but I disagree that not running a dem was a bad strategy.

[Blair]

These people are stupid and show that winning in politics isn’t as easy as armchair advisors think it is.

[Adam Griffin]

Welp, the 2018-2021 swing map has changed quite a bit since that preliminary one. At least we know a lot of the ED vote is now in!

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Riverside County is done counting E-Day votes. They still need to count 200k mail ballots + whatever postmarked ballots arrive by Friday.

[Agafin]

What's the over/under on how likely it is Newsom beats his own margin from 2018? Still looks plausible to me though I haven't worked out the math. Seems like it will likely be close.

Maybe 60% odds he beats it, given how big improvements for the GOP were in 2020.

(My argument is that CA is so far gone that this represents a decent result for the GOP anyway, but it doesn't seem like people here agree with me )

Well GOP generally did better in 2020 than 2018, and historically Democrats aren't exactly known for turning out in droves in off-year recall elections (even specifically in CA), so hard to imagine how this would NOT be seen as a regression, underperformance, and just further evidence of severe decline.

It's a good result relative to either POTUS or congressional results in 2020, and the GOP doesn't even need to do very much better than 2020 to take the House and Senate. (Arguably it can even do a little worse and still succeed.) The 2018 Newsom/Cox race seems like it wasn't very nationalized (Cox did a lot better than the Republican candidates for House, and he wasn't a 2016 Trump supporter and so managed to have some of his own patterns), so I don't think the 2018 CA-Gov race is necessarily a great comparison to this one.

Dems aren't known for turning out in droves in off-year elections, but this is a VBM race where ballot harvesting is legal, so "everyone turns out in droves" is going to be the norm for CA going forward. (Also, CA is pretty inelastic). Given those things, I think this result assuming a similar difference between mail-ins and E-Day votes as 2020 is a decent result for the GOP. People here are writing analyses based on 67-33 No being the final result, which would be pretty bad but it doesn't seem like that's actually what the outcome was here.

1. I would slow your roll on that until we get the final result. Still possible it's actually worse for the CA GOP than 2018 or 2020 overall. Even just looking at the cold hard numbers without any analysis of the situation.
 
2. Saying the last gubernatorial election in the state between the incumbent governor himself and a Republican in the midst of a national blue wave is not the best comparison point is absurd. If anything, this race might have actually been less "nationalized." Not like the whole country is turning out to vote as a referendum on the president today as in 2018. CA's recall system is pretty weird and unique to the state; it's as much of a pure "California" election as there has ever been.

3.First of all, "ballot harvesting" lol. In other words, "Hey man I have to run to work in the morning, can you drop off my ballot for me?" Love how the GOP makes it out to be some sinister thing. It's just democracy in action, universal suffrage in fact. Second of all, nobody forced anyone to send back their mailed ballots; I know I get mail all the time I ignore. It goes straight to the trash if I don't care about it. Third of all, even the election day vote for the GOP looks pretty underwhelming based on what we've seen so far.

4. I think the final margin is more likely to be in the 20s rather than 30s, yeah, but statistically not that far removed from the 2018 result OR even the 2020 presidential result under these circumstances? It's just pathetic for the GOP, end of story. Move the goalposts and change the narrative all you want. Inhale all the copium you want. This is just bad for your party. Even I thought Newsom's ceiling would be maybe 15 or so points, not 20-30 as it seems like it's gonna be. Not that long ago you had polls showing Yes ahead or it statistically virtually tied. That just downright evaporated and came to nothing. It's like the opposite of those polls showing Dems could maybe compete in red states in 2020.

Also just look at Orange County: YIKES. That was like your one bright spot in terms of even just keeping the House members who narrowly won around there. It's not looking good at all. Regardless of the reasons -- blame mail-in votes and "ballot harvesting" and "inelasticity" all you want, accurate or not (and it wasn't that long ago the Governator was able to win two terms, so not sure I buy it) -- but whatever the reason, it just seems like the GOP is beyond dead in CA and there is no realistic way to spin this as a positive result.

What prevents that person from changing your vote (or just spoiling it)?

[politicallefty]

The final margin will ultimately depend on how many VBM votes are still outstanding. As noted before, the ballots need only have been postmarked by Election Day, but they have to be received by September 21st. Prior to 2020, those used to be some of the most left-leaning ballots. It remains to be seen what those votes will look like this time, but they will surely be more left-leaning than the ED vote.

With just under 9m votes in, the margin stands at 29.2%.

I do wonder if the simplified ballot will make the vote counting faster than usual. This is by far the most simple ballot California voters ever get to see.

[Da2017]

The final margin is probably going to be between Gavin 18 and Biden 20.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Random candidate news: Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Hewitt currently has 1.1% & 3,515 votes in his home county. He's currently 12th countywide behind Caitlyn Jenner.

[Alben Barkley]

The final margin is probably going to be between Gavin 18 and Biden 20.

WOW.

I thought for certain this would be lower than both.

CA is beyond gone for the GOP at all levels. And based on the OC results, probably even their lingering Houes Reps are living on borrowed time.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

How did Kevin Faulconer flop so badly, this is his home county where he was a popular mayor and he's not even winning it in the recall.

Mayors don't mean jack out here. For the most part, all they do out here is cut ribbons & play traffic cop during Council meetings. Outside of your San Franscico's & Los Angeles', I bet most voters don't even know who their Mayor is. Hell, Villaraigosa didn't even win his own city in the 2018 primary, let alone LA County. Wouldn't shock me if Elder won Question 2 in the city of San Diego.

Also, small caveat since I know Question 2 is different than a top-two primary or November runoff. But running as a 'nonpartisan' councilmember/mayor/supervisor is a lot different than running as a 'GOP' candidate in a blue municipality. I've seen plenty of 'popular' local officials falter in blue locales as soon as that R is next to their name. It's why I don't take seriously the notion that someone like Faulconer can unite people because he was a nonpartisan "Republican" elected in a solid-blue city like San Diego.

I can go on, but I'll just say that I'm not surprised at all Faulconer fell well short in San Diego County. If he ends up on the November 2022 ballot, the best I see him doing is a 45-55 loss.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Let’s wait for all the votes to be in, but it looks like the polls were off again. They seem to have overestimated Recall (538 average: 57 No-42 Yes), which is a break from their pro-Democratic bias.

[Alben Barkley]

So with nearly 95% of the vote in, Newsom is nearly exactly matching Biden's 29% margin of victory.

I don't think even the most optimistic projections for Dems saw this coming...

[President Johnson]

And just like that, California has proven again it is the best state. And Republicans got this blowing up in their faces big time. You love to see it.

I just went through the last 20+ pages. As the recall election was happening overnight here in Germany, I left my computer at page 61 and opened it back up after having breakfast, avoiding any newsheadlines and see how things were developing. Certainly a lot of fun.