It is now official that Gavin Newsom’s California Recall Election will take place on September 14th, 2021, much sooner than many people may have expected. The reasoning for the rapid scheduling of the recall election is because Democrats in California believe that Newsom’s approval ratings right now give him the best chance at surviving the recall election.
This means that energized California citizens that want to recall Governor Gavin Newsom will be able to do so in approximately ten weeks on the 14th of September. The citizens that decide to vote in this election will be asked two primary questions. The first question will directly ask whether or not to recall Newsom.
To make it simple, if ‘No’ gets more votes than ‘Yes’, then Newsom survives the recall. Although, if ‘Yes’ gets more votes, then the second question on the ballot will become much more important. The second question asks citizens who they want to replace Newsom if he is successfully recalled. This list will be filled with candidates, probably hundreds of them, much like the 2003 Governor Recall Election in California.
Early polls suggested that Newsom could be in quite significant danger of being recalled, but recent weeks after opening the state of California shows that Newsom’s approval has somewhat recovered. That is one of the reasons that members of Newsom’s own political party have suggested that a recall election as soon as possible may give him the ‘house edge’ that he needs to survive the recall process.
On the other hand, it gives the Democratic Party much less time to match the level of energy that Republicans have already generated from the recall petition. If Newsom fails to convince his own party’s supporters to come out to the ballot boxes to defend his Governorship, then there’s a good chance that there’s going to be a new Republican Governor in California before 2021 comes to an end.