California Votes ‘No’ In Election To Recall Governor Gavin Newsom

A Republican effort to remove California Governor Gavin Newsom from office failed after the majority of voters in the state voted “No” in the election to recall the Democratic leader, according to projections by US media.

While more than 65 percent of the voters voted against removing him from office in the high turnout in Tuesday’s election, only around 34 percent were in favor of the recall, reports said.

The big support that he received in the special recall election means Newsom, who was elected in 2018 by a landslide majority, can complete his term that ends in January 2023.

“I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercised their fundamental right to vote,” Newsom said in a victory speech Tuesday night. “Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, our values where California has made so much progress, all of those things were on the ballot this evening,” he told supporters in the state capital of Sacramento.

“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic. We said yes to people’s right to vote without fear of fake fraud or voter suppression. We said yes to women’s fundamental, constitutional right to decide for herself what she does with her body and her fate and future,” he said at a press conference late Tuesday.

Newsom’s record on multiple issues, including his handling of the pandemic, was in question in the recall campaign launched by conservative Californians in 2020.

President Joe Biden campaigned strongly for Newsom until the last minute. Speaking at a Get Out the Vote Event with the Governor at Long Beach City College in Long Beach, Biden tore down the leading Republican challenger Larry Elder. He called Elder, who was a supporter of former President Donald Trump, “the closest thing to a Trump clone.”

He said that by voting “no” on a recall, “we’ll be protecting California from Trump Republicans trying to block us from beating this pandemic.”

Newsom’s survival is seen as a boost to the Democrats going into the 2022 midterm elections in the blue state.

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