What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

As for what the recall means for state Republicans, I’m skeptical that the California GOP can use it as a launching pad for a resurgence. The governorship will be on the ballot in 2022, regardless of the outcome of the recall, and nothing about how the California Republican Party has handled the recall thus far indicates to me that it will be able to mount a stronger challenge than it did in 2018. The state party is pretty fractured right now. It declined to endorse a replacement candidate earlier this summer, reportedly because some people were concerned that an endorsement of one candidate might discourage people who planned to cast their ballot for a different candidate.

To your question, Amelia, no state uses RCV for its recalls, but pretty much every state does it “better” than California, such as by holding a normal election where the recall target can run against the replacement candidate(s), or just holding the replacement election on a later date, as Emma and Joshua mentioned.

Yeah, it seems to me like an obvious fix would be to hold one election where anyone — including the recall target — can run, and conducting that election via ranked-choice voting.