Total Recall: What Can the Gavinator Learn from the Governator
Layout by Elle Bixby
As of March 26, 2021, the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom appears to have made it onto the ballot. The Republican-funded effort has submitted 2,117,730 signatures to the California Secretary of State, well over the 1.5 million signature threshold, and if the current 81.6% validity rate holds, California will see its second gubernatorial recall election in under two decades. The Golden State is a very different place than it was in 2003, when Governor Gray Davis was defenestrated in favor of movie star Arnold Schwarzanegger, and betting markets show Newsom as the strong favorite (PredictIt) — but Davis was expected to sail out of the recall at the beginning, too. Why was Davis an easier target, and should Newsom worry that he too will be “sent to the cooler”?
Raw Deal
Governor Gray Davis came into office with sky-high approval ratings, winning a landslide victory to become California’s first Democratic governor since Jerry Brown left office 16 years earlier (Gledhill and Chronicle Sacramento Bureau). He marketed himself as a centrist technocrat — running on the slogan “Experience Money Can’t Buy” — and immediately implemented an agenda of stricter gun control and higher investment in infrastructure, public health, and education, while at the same time posturing himself as “tough on crime”, supporting the death penalty and harsher sentencing laws (Lucas and Sacramento Bureau Chief). Unfortunately for the governor, the event that would define his legacy was not one he could have anticipated from the campaign trail. The Clinton administration’s energy deregulation, passed through a Republican Congress, should have led to more competitive energy prices in the Golden State, but instead provided fertile ground for bad actors to reap enormous profits through market exploitation. The energy and commodities corporation Enron was the most prominent of these bad actors, defrauding investors while illegally limiting the supply of energy in order to inflate prices. Enron’s market manipulation caused widespread blackouts and the bankruptcy of the Pacific Gas and Electric company, forcing the state to spend billions of dollars on power at highly unfavorable prices (Weare). The increased spending, higher personal electricity costs, and rolling blackouts heavily damaged Davis, who was blamed for the crisis, and the governor saw his approval rating plummet to negative 41 points (Jaffe). A recall had been initiated against Davis for his gun reform legislation in the late 90s, but it failed to gather enough signatures — this time, with energy shortages as an issue with crosspartisan appeal, the recall would head to the ballot.
The Running Man
Grossly under-qualified, generally incompetent, and ultimately unsuccessful celebrities-turned-politicians were not uncommon in the late 90's and early 2000’s. In 1998, wrestling star Jesse Ventura won an upset victory to become Governor of Minnesota (whose budget he promptly ruined before stepping down) (Johnston); in a harbinger of things to come, Donald Trump floated a presidential campaign on Ross Perot’s Reform Party ticket in 2000, winning the first two primaries despite ultimately declining to run; and though he only won 2.74% of the national popular vote, consumer advocate and perennial candidate Ralph Nader garnered enough support as a member of the Green Party to act as a spoiler in the 2000 election. Once the recall campaign against Gov. Davis had gathered enough steam, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian bodybuilder and action movie hero, announced his interest in following in their footsteps. He immediately leapt to the top of the polls, besting other celebrities like Arianna Huffington (I), adult film mogul Larry Flint (D), and child star Gary Coleman (I). Other prominent Democrats, including Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, announced their candidacies shortly thereafter, sinking Davis’s efforts to hold the party line, and ultimately legitimizing the recall in the eyes of the Democratic base. After a brief campaign, Davis was recalled with a 10.8 point margin, and Schwarzenegger, having won the plurality of votes against his 134 opponents, became Governor of the most populous state in the union. The “Governator” continued to act as an idiosyncratic moderate throughout his two terms, at times proclaiming tentative support of same-sex marriage even as his party’s president pushed a constitutional amendment to ban it (Murphy), as well as pursuing austere budgets and tax cuts (Broder). He was ultimately unable to get much done, and his administration left California’s finances in dire need of new revenue. Governor Schwarzenegger stepped down in 2011 with a negative 37 point approval rating (Baldassare et al.); due to term limits, it is unlikely he’ll be back.
Judgement Day
Though there are many valid criticisms to be made of the Newsom administration (chiefly his cowardice in the face of Southern California NIMBYs and his failure to live up to his campaign promise to solve the 3.5 million unit housing deficit), the current recall effort is motivated purely by conspiracies, partisanship, and resentment of the governor’s efforts to prevent the spread of covid-19 (Russonello). After a judge extended the deadline for collection due to the hardships imposed by the pandemic, signatures flooded in from the rural, conservative counties in the interior of the state, while high productivity urban areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles have contributed nearly none (Gardiner). The California GOP has played upon resentment politics and the occasional gaff from Newsom, such as his now-infamous, mask-free dinner at the French Laundry, and has collected signatures through political mail. Like last year’s Prop 20, the recall was originally a quixotic campaign intended to generate donations and party registrations, but has grown to a real threat, although nothing near the scale of the one that Gov. Davis faced. There is, as of yet, still no reason for Newsom to seriously worry about the recall election, should it qualify. California has shot from 11.5 points more blue than the rest of the country in the 2000 presidential election to 24.8 in 2020; additionally, as political polarization has increased, these biases have become more pronounced in down-ballot races like the governorship (Levitz). If he can hold the line and not allow another Bustamante to challenge him from within the party, Newsom should be able to coast on partisanship alone. Additionally, the California GOP is an entirely different beast than it was in 2003 — though Trumpism has been effective in winning back some of the Latino support lost after Prop 187 (Levitz; Nowrasteh), statewide Republicans are mostly irrelevant. Just like the Oregon GOP, their inability to win on the national party’s platform has counterintuitively pushed them to the right instead of the center, further prolonging their self-imposed political exile. The 2003 GOP, though certainly far-right by 2021 standards, was much closer to the political center and had significantly more cross-party appeal than today’s party. The contemporary California GOP also has no populist, Schwarzenegger-esque candidate to run on, instead relying only on partisans like John Cox and Kevin Faulconer. Most importantly, the recall is based on nothing more than political opportunism. California is the poster child for the ramifications of too much direct democracy, and the low bar for recall elections is a direct consequence of that. Still, it took massive fraud and an extraordinarily popular Austrian to unseat Governor Davis; dining blunders will not be enough to sink Newsom on their own, especially given that economic forecasts are extremely optimistic (Fitch Ratings). Newsom will likely hedge by pivoting to the right, but unless the stars align and serious challengers emerge from both his left and right, the Gavinator will not be saying “hasta la vista” until at least 2022.
References
Baldassare, Mark, et al. “Californians and Higher Education.” PPIC Statewide Survey, Public Policy Institute of California, November 2010, https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1110MBS.pdf. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Broder, John M. “Governor Seeks Big Cuts In California's Spending.” The New York Times, 10 January 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/us/governor-seeks-big-cuts-in-california-s-spending.html. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Fitch Ratings. “World GDP Forecasts Revised Up After US Fiscal Stimulus Package.” FitchRatings, 17 March 2021, https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/world-gdp-forecasts-revised-up-after-us-fiscal-stimulus-package-17-03-2021. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Gardiner, Dustin. “Here's where California's recall Gavin Newsom movement is strongest.” The San Francisco Chronicle, 26 March 2021, https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Here-s-where-California-s-recall-Gavin-Newsom-16054713.php. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Gledhill, Lynda, and Chronicle Sacramento Bureau. “Record-High Job Ratings for California Politicians.” SFGate [Sacramento], 16 February 2000, https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Record-High-Job-Ratings-for-California-Politicians-3239458.php. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Jaffe, Ina. “A Profile of California Gov. Gray Davis.” A Profile of California Gov. Gray Davis, 24 July 2003, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1356303. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Johnston, Louis D. “Why do we have a state budget mess? Think Ventura years and baby boomers.” MinnPost, 9 November 2012, https://www.minnpost.com/macro-micro-minnesota/2012/11/why-do-we-have-state-budget-mess-think-ventura-years-and-baby-boomers/. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Levitz, Eric. “David Shor’s Postmortem of the 2020 Election.” Intelligencer, 13 November 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/david-shor-analysis-2020-election-autopsy-democrats-polls.html. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Levitz, Eric. “David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics.” Intelligencer, 17 July 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Lucas, Greg, and Sacramento Bureau Chief. “Energy crisis leaves Davis record in dark.” SFGate [Sacramento], 13 October 2012, https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Energy-crisis-leaves-Davis-record-in-dark-2762650.php. Accessed 3 26 2021.
Murphy, Dean E. “Schwarzenegger Backs Off His Stance Against Gay Marriage.” The New York Times, 3 March 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/us/schwarzenegger-backs-off-his-stance-against-gay-marriage.html. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Nowrasteh, Alex. “Proposition 187 Turned California Blue.” Cato Institute, 20 July 2016, https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-blue. Accessed 26 March 2021.
PredictIt. “Will Gavin Newsom be recalled in 2021?” PredictIt, 9 April 2021, https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7189/Will-Gavin-Newsom-be-recalled-in-2021. Accessed 9 April 2021.
Russonello, Giovanni. “Who Are Gavin Newsom’s Enemies?” The New York Times, 26 March 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/us/politics/gavin-newsom-recall.html. Accessed 26 March 2021.
Weare, Christopher. The California Electricity Crisis: Causes and Policy Options. San Francisco, Public Policy Institute of California, 2003. PPIC, https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_103CWR.pdf. Accessed 26 March 2021.