California voters have started casting their ballots on their second gubernatorial recall ever and their first in 18 years, deciding whether to give Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom a new lease on his political life. Polling shows the recall on a knife’s edge. At the time of this writing, “Yes” — remove — narrowly leads with 48 percent of Californians polled, while 46 percent plan to vote “No.” Both are within the poll’s margin of error. If the recall passes, whoever has the most votes on the second question will replace Newsom, with longtime conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder out front with a lead of 11 percent.
I was running for the California State Assembly during the last successful recall election in October 2003, and five months later, I won the Republican primary election. So I’ve seen this movie before, and while things don’t look quite as bad for Newsom as they did for Gov. Gray Davis, a few headwinds may see the nation’s most populous blue bastion elect a thoughtful conservative governor with as little as 20 percent of the vote.
Political pitfalls for Newsom are on all sides. They include the state’s burgeoning crime rate, rampant street homelessness, a sputtering electric grid overly dependent on unreliable green energy sources, and a constant outflow of people and jobs to other states— with California losing a seat in the U.S. House for the first time since becoming a state in 1850.
Newsom has become positively prickly over the prospects of losing his gig and openly showed anger with what he felt was unfair media coverage during an editorial sit-down with the Sacramento Bee earlier this .......................
