Gavin Newsom won’t face a second recall election. Why the latest effort fizzled
The latest effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom from office failed to gather enough signatures, the campaign confirmed Tuesday, the deadline to submit the necessary 1.3 million signatures.
“We’re not turning in any signatures,” Anne Hyde Dunsmore, chief petitioner with the campaign, said in an interview Tuesday. “The process is time consuming and we felt that we had done what we needed to do.”
The group’s failure to gather enough signatures means Newsom will not face a second recall election. In 2021, he defeated a recall attempt with 62% of California voters opting to keep him in office. A year later he won a second term in office with 59%. Newsom is term-limited and will leave office in 2027.
“Serial losers, losing,” Newsom campaign spokesman Nathan Click said.
The latest recall campaign set out in February to remove Newsom from the highest elected office in California but Dunsmore said their mission quickly pivoted to keep him from moving further up, into the White House.
Newsom was actively campaigning for president Joe Biden’s reelection this summer before Biden dropped out of the race. Dunsmore and other critics of the governor saw it as an attempt for Newsom to raise his national profile and leverage himself onto the presidential ticket.
“You’d have to be blind and deaf not to recognize the fact that his trips to China, his active fundraising for candidates in other states — which he’s never done before — his constant acceleration of press opportunities around the world, weren’t designed with immediate presidential aspirations in mind,” she said.
Dunsmore said with another Democrat, Vice President Kamala Harris, now leading the party, Newsom faded into the background. Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee last month.
“When you read about Gavin Newsom today, he is termed as irrelevant and that’s a victory,” she said. “He is not on a track to the White House. That’s a victory. He is now having to fix the problems he’s created. That’s a victory.”
The group, Rescue California, began calling itself “Rescue California, Save America.” While backed by thousands of volunteers, it failed to raise the millions of dollars needed to support a major statewide recall campaign and gather the more than 1.3 million voter signatures needed to force an election.
With no major financial backing, Dunsmore said the campaign became more of an educational one. It held thrice-weekly conference calls with voters and volunteers where experts discussed issues such as this year’s $47 billion state budget deficit. She said the grassroots campaign sent “millions” of emails.
Dunsmore also blasted the California Republican Party for not assisting with the latest attempt to remove Newsom from office.
“The California Republican Party is not run by the people — the Republicans — in the state,” she said. “It’s run by the major donors who also give to Gavin Newsom.”
She pointed to Pacific Gas & Electric, which supported Newsom’s first run for governor. This year PG&E has donated to the California GOP as well as Newsom’s behavioral health reform measure Prop. 1, which was on the ballot in March.
Dunsmore also called state party chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson a “puppet” of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy “was a mastermind behind a lot of great things,” she said. “Dealing with the problems in Sacramento, and therefore the problems in California, is not one of them. So we’re missing leadership at the state party.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2024 at 11:39 AM.
