Gavin Newsom has his own petition to fight the recall. Experts say it’s misleading

With a likely recall looming, Gov. Gavin Newsom is shoring up his base of supporters using national Democratic stars, small-dollar fundraising pleas, and even his own “petition.”

“Join Stacey Abrams, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren: add your name to our NEW petition of Californians who say they OPPOSE the Republican Recall of Governor Gavin Newsom,” the campaign wrote in an email linking to a form where people are asked to provide their names, email addresses and zip codes.

It’s not a traditional petition, which are typically used to ask for a government action.

Instead, it’s an effort to collect contact information from supporters, said anti-recall spokesman Nathan Click.

Experts say the tactic is common among political campaigns, but it’s one that could confuse voters.

“The term petition, we think of it as meaning something that will have some impact on the government,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at Sacramento State. “Calling it a petition is somewhat misleading to voters. It seems like you’re making some sort of official difference when it’s actually about collecting information.”

Click defended the practice, saying petitions are a common campaign tactic.

“Online petitions are a basic tool used by non-profits, advocacy groups and campaigns on both side of the aisle to organize supporters online and help people get engaged in causes,” he wrote in a statement. “Anyone who has visited an online petition site like Change.org will understand how common-place these efforts are.”

The petition push is one of dozens of emails Newsom’s campaign has sent to supporters in the month since he launched his anti-recall campaign.

Most of Newsom’s emails ask supporters to donate $3, then take them to a page that has options for amounts ranging from $3 to $1,000. Experts say he could use the contact information collected through his petition to ask for more donations later. If he gets a lot of signatures, he could also tout that as evidence of a broad support, just as recall supporters have.

Recall supporters just wrapped up collecting signatures on their own petitions to trigger a special election. And recall opponents are now asking people who signed to go through a kind of reverse-petition process to remove their signatures, a last-ditch effort to prevent a special election.

Voters who are aware of those official petition activities may be confused by the “petition” Newsom’s campaign is promoting, said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation.

“That’s a lot of petition messaging out there that may confuse voters,” Alexander said. “Having people sign petitions is a tried and true method for gathering support for a political cause, so on one hand it’s not that unusual, but in the context of an recall effort, which requires hundreds of thousands of people to sign a petition in the first place, it could be confusing to some.”

Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California, said the petition is likely an effort to both collect information from supporters and to get people to commit to supporting Newsom’s campaign.

“Generally speaking when you use that tactic, it’s really about making people commit,” she said. “Once they go to a point of signing a petition in some form, the idea is they’re more likely to donate money, they’re more likely to back that up with a vote.”

The campaign has also sent emails asking supporters to take surveys, sign up to send campaign texts and provide their addresses to receive an anti-recall sticker.

Most of the campaign’s emails are labeled as sent from “Gavin Newsom for Governor” or “Team Newsom,” but occasionally the campaign sends emails addressed to supporters from national Democratic leaders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Stacey Abrams, former minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives.

The emails frequently criticize the pro-recall effort for taking money from national conservative figures including Mike Huckabee and groups like the Republican National Committee. They also highlight Newsom’s work getting Californians vaccinated and criticize conservative views held by recall supporters.

If recall supporters succeed in triggering a special election, it likely won’t happen until the fall. At this point, Romero said it’s too early for the Newsom campaign to be doing a real get-out-the vote effort, and is instead targeting its outreach to shoring up people and groups the governor will need to tap for help as the election draws closer.

“The governor is really targeting more the organizing groups and political leadership,” she said. “It’s too early to be doing any significant one-on-one voter outreach, but he’s setting the stage for that, ... gaining support from people that are going to be critical to mobilizing voters.”

Beyond the small-dollar figures his campaign says it’s collecting, Newsom has also attracted big donations from groups including $250,000 from the union representing engineers employed by state government, $250,000 from Stuart and Lynda Resnick of The Wonderful Company, and $100,000 from San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York. Unlike in a traditional gubernatorial election, Newsom isn’t subject to contribution limits for his anti-recall campaign.

So far, Newsom’s campaign has raised at least $1.5 million in donations over $5,000. The campaign doesn’t have to report small-dollar donations until the end of the month.

This story was originally published April 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Gavin Newsom has his own petition to fight the recall. Experts say it’s misleading."