What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

Rick Klein

With poll closing time now having come and gone, ABC News is reporting a few more nuggets out of the preliminary exit polls. Newsom is 55-43 approve-disapprove among recall voters. Elder meanwhile is 34-50 favorable-unfavorable.

Ryan Matsumoto

11:04 pm

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.

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