California recall election: Fact-checking Governor Newsom and his challengers

California’s Democrat Governor, Gavin Newsom, faces being replaced as the leader of the state if recalled by voters in Tuesday’s election.

His handling of the pandemic has been criticised, fuelling a long Republican-led effort to remove him from office.

Here, BBC News looks at some of the claims made by Governor Newsom and his challengers on the campaign trail.

Governor Newsom has been comparing California’s Covid record with those of states with Republican governors.

In contrast to California, he said in late August, Texas, Florida and Mississippi, for example, had some of the country’s highest case and test-positivity rates in the US.

In California, the weekly average proportion of Covid tests that come back positive is 2.9% – the third lowest reported of all US states, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Over the course of the pandemic, California has recorded more Covid cases than any other state. But it also has the largest population. And 34 of the 49 other states, including Florida, Texas and Mississippi, have higher per-capita rates.

Those with lower rates, however, do include states with Republican governors, such as West Virginia and Maryland.

But all of his Republican challengers have been vaccinated.

And the leading Republican candidate, Larry Elder, has said: “I’m not anti-vax.

“I’ve been vaccinated because of my age, because of a blood condition I have, and my doctor strongly advised me to become vaccinated.”

Mr Elder has, however, said he does not believe children need to be vaccinated.

And all the Republican challengers have said they would roll back vaccine mandates put in place by Governor Newsom for state school and healthcare workers.

Launching his campaign in July, Mr Elder said crime in California was rising under Governor Newsom – a claim his challengers have reinforced throughout the race.

Certain crimes have increased significantly since Governor Newsom took office, in January 2019.

But this is a trend seen in many other parts of the country too.

In 2019, California had its fewest homicides since 1966.

The following year, the rate rose 31% – while across the country there were 25% more murders – but other offences such as property crime fell by 7.7%.

Overall, violent crime – including murder, robbery, aggravated assault and rape – rose by 0.8% in California in 2020, compared with 2019.

But it remains far below its 1990s peak.

And it rose about 3% across the US.

Mr Elder made this claim on 5 September, saying under Governor Newsom, for the first time, fewer people were coming to live in California than moving away.

And the state’s population growth has been slowing for 20 years.

In 2020, the state recorded its first population decline since records began, according to Census data.

But natural population increase – which represents births minus deaths – has been slowing for many years and took a sharp downturn during the pandemic.