What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

We actually just published an article over at Inside Elections that speaks to this! According to data from the media analytics firm Kantar, Republican advertising actually avoided messaging on COVID-19 in favor of more traditional lines of attack. For instance, taxes featured in 67 percent of all GOP TV ads, and housing and homelessness featured in just over 50 percent. COVID-19 was mentioned in just 7 percent of GOP ads.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, COVID-19 featured in 60 percent of TV ads, indicating that Democrats now think Newsom is particularly strong on the issue even if he’s had a few missteps.

It does seem like the recall, at least for a while, was how some voters projected their frustration with the state’s very real issues onto California’s top leader. Everything is extreme in California these days, from the weather to the cost of housing, and it’s understandable that residents would be looking for someone to blame. Maybe Newsom brought some of this on himself by overpromising when it came to issues like housing reform — but I wonder if some Californians have also realized that Newsom’s potential replacements don’t have easy fixes for these problems, either, because no one does!

As Nathaniel mentioned, Newsom’s handling of the pandemic has certainly played a role in Californians wanting to oust him from office, but it’s hardly the only reason for the recall effort. In fact, when the race was heating up in July, we noted that according to a poll from the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Newsom’s biggest liability wasn’t his handling of the pandemic but rather his handling of many of the state’s long-standing problems, like homelessness, income inequality and wildfires. How have these issues factored into the race? And why are they such a political problem for politicians in the state?