What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

Mail ballots in Orange County, one of the main counties we’re watching tonight, are breaking against the recall 58 percent to 42 percent. Good chance it votes against recall even when all the votes are counted, too.

The latest batch of preliminary exit polling says that 55 percent of voters approved of the way Newsom is handling his job, and 42 percent disapprove. That’s a good position to be in when facing a recall that’s in many ways a giant approval poll. But it also underscores just how strong Newsom was heading into the race compared with his less fortunate predecessor, Gray Davis, who was recalled in 2003. Exit polling that year found Davis’s approval rating at an abysmal 26 percent approve/73 percent disapprove. And yet 45 percent of voters still wanted to keep Davis!

So Newsom is starting from a much stronger position and it’s entirely possible some voters who don’t approve of him will still vote No on recall, as they did in 2003.