Early voting for California’s Governor Recall Election starts this week and will continue until Election Day on September 14th. Republicans are hoping that they will be able to catch up to the early lead that Democrats have paced during early mail-in voting.
According to multiple ballot reporting agencies that are monitoring the 2021 Recall Election, Democrats are doing well in early-voting as expected. Republicans and Independents are not returning as many ballots through early-voting but many of them are expected to make up for that starting this week when in-person early voting starts.
Republicans and Independents are far more likely to vote in-person than by mail. This was true in the 2020 Presidential Election and will likely also be true for the 2021 Gubernatorial Recall Election.
Republican Frontrunner Larry Elder is leading all recent polls and is considered the favorite to replace Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. If Newsom is recalled on ‘Question 1’, there’s a fairly good chance that Elder will win on ‘Question 2’.
The problem for Republicans in the State of California is that they need to make up significant margins that have already been established in the early vote for mail-in ballots. If voters cast their ballot along party lines, Democrats have a very good chance of winning unless Republican turnout is incredible during in-person early voting and election day.
Many polling groups are struggling to analyze Californian voters because many Democrats are actually considering voting in-favor of the recall. The percentage of Democrats that vote ‘yes’ on the recall is extremely important. If the percentage is small, then Democrats likely have nothing to worry about. If the percentage balloons into double-digits and beyond, then recalling Governor Gavin Newsom may be inevitable if Republican turnout is reasonable.
It will be extremely important to monitor in-person early voting trends over the next several days to truly understand if Republicans are motivated to recall the Governor. On September 14th, voting will close and California’s citizens will know if they are going to be replacing their Governor.
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are expected to campaign for Newsom later this week. Harris originally canceled her trip to California after the Afghanistan crisis took place during her originally-planned trip. Many political analysts are wondering if their trips will be too late as most of the ballots may already be cast by the time the campaign trips take place.
