Gavin Newsom's Victory over “Bigotry”

Gavin Newsom will remain Governor of California after successfully surviving a bid to remove him from office following heavy criticism of his handling of the pandemic.

The Democratic Governor is in the third year of his four-year term, and as such will be up for reelection in November 2022. However, almost 1.5 million signatures were gathered, equal to 12% of the 2018 gubernatorial vote, which met the threshold to trigger a recall election, in which Newsom then defeated the 80 candidates standing against him resoundingly. 

Last autumn, Newsom faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for attending a dinner at “The French Laundry”, a high-end restaurant, whilst encouraging Californians to stay at home amid Coronavirus restrictions. The decision to attend the dinner was in violation of Newsom’s own restrictions, leading him to admit that, "the spirit of what I'm preaching all the time was contradicted, and I've got to own that."

The Associated Press projected that the Governor would keep his position a mere 45 minutes after the polls closed. Equally, CBS has estimated that two-thirds of voters supported Newsom after 60% of the votes had been tallied. 

Newsom’s main opponent, Republican radio host Larry Elder, voiced concerns regarding the election's integrity before the election had even begun. Many of the same concerns voiced by former President Donald Trump, which Elder was supportive of, were voiced about the California recall election.

Newsom’s campaign against his recall saw both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris campaigning on his behalf. The evening before election day, Biden asserted to voters that their choice in this recall election would “reverberate around the world”.

After it became clear that Newsom was going to maintain his governorship, he claimed that his victory was a ‘rejection of cynicism and bigotry’: 

Newsom reiterated this view when asked by reporters to comment on his victory:

“I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercise their fundamental right to vote and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism.”