How a Newsom Recall Could End the Democrats' U.S. Senate Majority [View all]

A version of this piece appears in the Los Angeles Times.

Shocked by recent polling that showed likely voters almost evenly split on the question of whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Democrats are responding by pledging to walk more precincts and air more ads.

Let me gently suggest that those efforts, while necessary, fall well short of sufficient.

So long as the question before voters is solely that of Newsom’s tenure in office, Republicans will have a built-in advantage. Democrats and independents, from the evidence of the polls, are supportive of Newsom but hardly brimming with enthusiasm. Republicans, by contrast, are a Trumpified party stewing in and defined by a hatred of Democrats and progressives, for deeds both real and imagined. Republicans in California also know they cannot win statewide offices in regular elections. Since Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected governor in 2006 (after having first been elected in a recall), the Republicans have gone zero for 37 in such contests. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by a nearly two-to-one margin. It’s only in a low-turnout recall that Republicans stand a chance.

As Democrats are not, then, Republicans come to the recall, to cop a line from Yeats, “filled with passionate intensity.”

Against that intensity, how can Newsom prevail? Easy: Focus on what a Republican governor would likely do to the state if Newsom were recalled. On the retro policies such a governor would inflict on this decidedly non-retro state. And on who that governor might be.

Read more: https://prospect.org/politics/how-newsom-recall-could-end-democrats-senate-majority/
(American Prospect)