What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

While the organizers of the recall began their work before COVID-19 hit, the pandemic arguably played a big role in why we’re here today. For one thing, California courts extended the signature gathering deadline because organizers argued the pandemic had stifled their efforts. But Newsom’s COVID-19 restrictions and public relations snafus — like attending a posh dinner party unmasked in an enclosed space in violation of state protocols — may have galvanized Republicans and even some Democrats — to support his recall.

Nevertheless, despite some frustration with Newsom’s handling of COVID-19, the preliminary exit polls suggested that only about 3-in-10 California voters felt his pandemic policies were too strict, and Newsom is winning more than 4-in-5 of the roughly 7-in-10 voters who said his policies were about right or not strict enough. Additionally, about 3-in-10 voters named the pandemic as the most important issue (more than any other issue named), and Newsom won 4-in-5 of those voters, too.

I haven’t seen any precise turnout estimates, Galen, but it looks like the mail-in vote is accounting for approximately 60 percent of the estimated vote in most counties on The New York Times results site. That would mean about 40 percent of the vote was cast in person.

The reason we are still encouraging caution in interpreting the results at this point is because of how they could shift once the day-of in-person vote is tallied. For some context, what percent of the vote do we expect to have been cast in-person?