California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom handily beat back an effort to oust him from office in a special election, overcoming a Republican campaign to unseat him over his liberal policies on immigration, COVID-19 and crime
Newsom, a first-term governor beset by challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme drought and severe wildfires, boosted turnout among Democrats with a flurry of late campaigning and easily overcame the move by Republicans to recall him.
"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 in the state capital of Sacramento. Key to Newsom's success was an all-out campaign to mobilize a Democratic base that had initially been sleepy, assuming that the governor would win because the state is so overwhelmingly Democratic.
Malia Cohen, an elected member of the California Board of Equalization who spent the last several days campaigning to raise turnout among African American voters, said the effort was key to the campaign's success.California Governor Gavin Newsom makes an appearance after the polls close on the recall election, at the California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, California, U.S., September 14, 2021. REUTERS/Fred Greaves"You can feel the energy," Cohen said Tuesday.
The removal of Newsom, who was elected in a landslide in 2018, would have set off alarms among Democrats, coming in one of the nation's most liberal states just over a year before the 2022 elections that will decide control of Congress. In early voting and vote by mail, Democrats returned ballots at more than twice the rate of Republicans. This prompted fear among Republican leaders that their voters had taken to heart false claims of election fraud pushed by Trump and conservative media after Biden won the 2020 presidential election.
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