What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

Ryan Matsumoto

One reason it’s challenging to assess this race is that it’s not a standard matchup between a Democrat and a Republican: The ballot question frames the election as a referendum on Newsom. This YouGov poll, for example, showed that Newsom would win by larger margins if he had head-to-head matchups against each of his Republican opponents.

The YouGov poll shows how the structure of the recall ballot question benefits Newsom’s opponents.

Newsom prevails 57% – 43% on the recall question, but in hypothetical head-to-head matchups he’d be up 61% – 39% vs. Elder, 63% – 37% vs. Cox, and 61% – 39% vs. Faulconer. https://t.co/tdrYUZ15dS
— Ryan Matsumoto (@ryanmatsumoto1) September 8, 2021

Nathaniel Rakich

11:03 pm

Yeah, Galen, I think that’s a pretty good baseline. You could also use California’s FiveThirtyEight partisan lean, which is D+25. I’d say a weak performance for Newsom would be anything less than a 15-point win.

Galen Druke

11:02 pm

A number of indicators suggest that Newsom is likelier than not to keep his job tonight, but what kind of margin would be a good performance for Republicans or Democrats? Should we use Newsom’s previous 20-plus point margin in 2018 as a baseline?

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