How California counties’ COVID vaccine rates compare to recall election results
There is substantial overlap between the California counties that voted most heavily to remove Gov. Gavin Newsom from office in this week’s recall election and those with the lowest rates of COVID-19 vaccination among adults.
Voters in historically blue California voted 64% to 36% to keep Newsom in office.
Still, the yes vote to recall the governor topped 50% in 27 of the state’s 58 counties, most of them in the San Joaquin Valley along with sparsely populated areas of Northern California and the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Every county that voted in favor of removing the governor trailed the state’s average vaccination rate, which was 79% through Wednesday among California adults, by double digits, according to data from the California Department of Public Health and the Secretary of State.
The three counties voting against Newsom by the largest margins — Lassen, Modoc and Tehama — are all in the bottom five for adult vaccination rates.
Lassen, where 84% voted to oust the Democratic governor, ranks last among all 58 counties with just 27% of its adults fully vaccinated. Modoc (78% yes on recall) ranks fifth-lowest with 44% vaccinated and Tehama (74% yes on recall) is fourth-lowest with 43% vaccinated.
The highest vaccination rate among the 27 counties voting yes on the recall was Placer, which also had one of the closest margins in the election, with 51.1% voting to oust Newsom. About 66% of Placer County adults are fully vaccinated.
Only four other counties voting in favor of the recall have vaccine rates above 60%: Colusa, El Dorado, Fresno and Sutter. The remaining 22 each fall at least 20 percentage points below California’s overall rate.
On the other end, the counties that voted most heavily against recalling Newsom have some of the state’s highest vaccination rates. San Francisco, where just 13% voted yes on removal, has 82% of adults vaccinated. Marin, with the second-widest margin on the recall at 16% in favor and 84% against, has the state’s best vaccination rate at 87%.
In Los Angeles, the most populous county making up about a quarter of the state’s 39.5 million residents, 71% of adults are fully vaccinated. The same percentage in L.A. voted against recalling the governor.
Politics are just one of several factors leading vaccine rates to vary from county to county. Race and ethnicity, poverty rates, average age and levels of health care access within communities all play major roles as well.
Sacramento County’s margin in the recall election roughly matched the statewide margin — 64% opposed, 36% in favor of removing Newsom — but Sacramento, like Placer, has fully inoculated just 66% of adults in the five months since the jabs became widely available.
Five counties that voted in favor of keeping Newsom have fewer than 60% vaccinated: San Joaquin, Riverside, San Bernadino, Lake and Merced.
The COVID-19 pandemic played a major role in the recall campaign from start to finish.
“Science was on the ballot,” Newsom told reporters during a visit to an Oakland school on Wednesday. “Our approach to this pandemic, vaccinations, were on the ballot last night.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
