What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results
Micah, I think the more succinct description of the campaign is, ‘I’m a Democrat, you’re a Democrat, let’s get this over with.’ Everything else is secondary to that, which also makes answering the second point tougher. We’ll have a better look at a more competitive state when Virginia holds its gubernatorial contest later this year. But California is its own beast, and I’d be wary of applying much of what we see here to swing states.
I’m curious for people’s takes on this tweet — if “no” wins as it’s looking like will happen:
https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1437979089206456325?s=21
- Is this an accurate description of how the campaign played out in California?
- If so, does it apply outside blue states (in swing states, to be exact)?
Related to Nathaniel’s comment, I noticed that in deep blue Los Angeles County, about 1.85 million votes have been cast on the recall question, but only about 850,000 have been cast on the replacement question. That speaks to the pre-election polls that suggested a huge number of Democratic voters planned to not vote for any of the replacement candidates. This was in part because Newsom’s campaign explicitly encouraged voters to do that and also because California Democrats discouraged any notable Democrats from running — so even if a Democrat had wanted to vote for a replacement choice, they would likely be unfamiliar with any candidates on the replacement ballot.