CA Recall Shows Radicalized Whites Dragging Dems to Left, as Working-Class Voters of All Races Flee to GOP

On Tuesday, September 14th, the few California voters who had not already cast ballots by mail went in person to the polls to vote on the fate of Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom. The results, with around 85% of the vote counted are 63.4% against the recall and 36.6% in favor.

Both Democrats and Republicans have been quick to try and spin these results. Republicans, especially those linked to the Republican establishment, have argued that because the 36.5% of Californians voted to remove Newsom is greater than the 34.3% of the vote received by Donald Trump in 2020, the result represents a 2% swing toward the GOP. Although less than they would have hoped for given Biden’s travails (the no recall vote will probably end just under Biden’s 63.44% vote share in 2020) it is still “progress.”

 Democrats by contrast argue that the results represent a swing in their favor from 2018, when Gavin Newsom was elected by a margin of 61.95% to 38.05%, in what was a Democratic landslide year. In short, Republicans have claimed a better year than 2020, and Democrats a better year than 2018.

But both parties cannot have actually made progress with voters during Newsom’s recall in the zero-sum game of politics, and especially not down ballot in California, where 2018 saw Republicans decimated in Congressional races, losing 7 seats, four of which they regained in 2020. In fact, the narratives of both parties ignore the fact that, with Donald Trump on top of the ticket, Republican candidates had a much better year in 2020, not just in California, but nationwide. But it was particularly a much better year in California, where Donald Trump received the highest number of votes ever cast for a Republican, over 6 million, (around the same number of Californians who voted to keep Gavin Newsom last week), and increased his percentage of the vote by 3 points compared to 2016.