High Turnout in California as Voters Decide Whether to Recall Newsom

For example, critics have suggested requiring more signatures to get a recall on the ballot, having the lieutenant governor replace a recalled governor, or holding a direct contest between the incumbent and his or her challengers rather than separating the recall into two questions.

Mr. Murphy helped Mr. Schwarzenegger channel voter discontent in 2003, when Californians were unnerved by rolling blackouts and an increase in vehicle registration fees, in contrast to today’s angst over raging wildfires and the government’s coronavirus response.

Mr. Murphy choreographed the Schwarzenegger campaign’s signature stunt that year: dropping a wrecking ball on an old Buick spray-painted with the words “Davis Car Tax.” It was meant as a visual reminder of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s pledge to get rid of the vehicle fee increase put in place by the man he would eventually displace from office, Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.

“I wanted to blow it up,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview. And even though Mr. Schwarzenegger loved the idea — “Do it! Do it!” Mr. Murphy recalled him saying — they ultimately decided against it, given that the plan was to pull the stunt off at a campaign rally where Schwarzenegger fans could potentially be injured.

Mr. Murphy said that this year, he doubted there was anything Republicans could do — pyrotechnic or otherwise — to lift Larry Elder, the talk radio host and G.O.P. front-runner, over Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“If this were Michigan or another swing state, he’d be in much more trouble,” Mr. Murphy said of the governor. “But he didn’t even get the workout he deserved.

“Trump has just put anthrax in the water here, so it was impossible to clear the field for a viable Republican. That’s the world we’re in with Trump’s Republican Party.”

I keep wondering what the race would have been like if Kevin Faulconer — the former Republican mayor of San Diego who has played up his work with the city’s Democratic City Council — had been the front-runner to replace Newsom instead of Larry Elder, the conservative radio host. It would have blunted Newsom’s strategy of making the election all about Trump, and possibly forced the campaigns to talk about issues like wildfires or homelessness.

His message is that the United States long ago vanquished racism.

Mr. Elder’s choice of a campaign stop on Monday in Monterey Park, a city in eastern Los Angeles County that is predominantly Asian American and has a sizable Latino population, seemed intended to celebrate diversity. But Mr. Elder, who is Black, also used the visit to argue that systemic racism, which he has called a “lie,” does not exist in America anymore.

“No matter what language we speak, what color we share, even what political stripe we brag about,” Betty Chu, the former mayor of Monterey Park, told Mr. Elder’s supporters, “If it’s an ‘R,’ a ‘D,’ or ‘decline to state,’ the city long stood for anti-hate and bringing people together.”

Ms. Chu said that Mr. Elder’s success as a columnist and radio host, and the fact that he attended public schools and rose to prominence from South Central Los Angeles, were proof “that skin color doesn’t hold you back.”

For many of Mr. Elder’s supporters, especially conservative white voters who say they are tired of hearing about systemic racism after last year’s social unrest following the murder of George Floyd, that message is resonant.

Stacy Hallum, 47, a supporter of Mr. Elder’s who attended his rally on Monday, said she loved the diversity of where she lives, but said that “just because we’re white, we matter too.”

She continued: “I’m so tired of the racism thing. We’re done with racism. I’m not privileged, let me tell you.”

Mr. Elder has often sought to seize on issues of race, describing his policies as ones that will benefit people of color.

On the issue of private versus public education, he has attacked Democrats like Mr. Newsom for sending their children to private school while opposing charter schools and other forms of private or semiprivate education. Mr. Elder said such moves leave public schools to fail their Black and brown students.

“So what they’re afraid of is Larry Elder, from the hood, who attended a public school, is going to break that stranglehold Democrats have over Black and brown parents, specifically over the issue of school choice,” he said at the rally on Monday.

We’ve seen over eight million ballots mailed back thus far, which is a very significant number of ballots coming in. So that in itself is rather exciting, as well as ballots still being dropped off at the ballot boxes this morning.

We’ve had folks calling all of our hotlines asking where their polling places are or looking for additional information. It’s clear that people are interested in voting today.

Why have people been calling the hotlines?

Sometimes people have familiar polling places that they used to go to forever and now they’ve changed. We’ve had a couple of calls saying, “Where is it now?”

We’ve had folks who couldn’t find their ballots — misplaced them after they came in the mail. And we’ve had folks who left the state for a bit and wonder how can they still vote, those kinds of things.

But we’ve had no long lines, no folks waiting. We have a wait time of zero right now.

Any other hitches today?

We’ve seen small things. One polling place opening 10 minutes late, that kind of stuff.

Because of the fires, we’ve had some folks who moved away from their places. So we have to deal with that issue. We had one county the telephones were not servicing. We’ve just adapted and adjusted to every little new thing that comes along. But we haven’t had anything that’s been a major shutdown.

For those facing difficulties because of the wildfires, what else have you done?

We have made sure that all of those who were in the fire zones got their mail-in ballots.

We made sure that those who had to leave or who’ve lost their homes, that they had access to voting in various other ways, in terms of being able to go to another county to vote, making sure they had their mail-in ballots, making sure they knew where the ballot boxes were in other counties or other areas. So we have made outreach to all of those who might have been affected by any fire or any kind of tragedy.

We also set up remote mobile voting for our firefighters to make sure that those who are away from their homes had access to vote.

How are you preparing your office for the claims and possible litigation of election fraud that Republicans say they may bring?

I think the whole discussion of fraud across the nation kind of gives us a preview of what people will do. They may file various lawsuits. We know that they have been trying to collect information — they set up a website saying, ‘If you see any irregularities, show us your irregularities.’ And, you know, people go to court, and thus far across the nation, they’ve lost because there is no widespread fraud in the election process. But whether they decide to go to court or not, we will be there to defend the process.

We know that they will always talk about the fact that it was a stolen election or fraud, — or there’s a new term, “shenanigans.” We have no evidence of that, and when we’ve had allegations of any type, especially if there’s any specific information, we investigated. And as most folks have found across the nation, there is no there there.

So we’re not totally freaking out. We’re just making sure that everything we do is correct by the book. That we’ve taken our time to make sure that there’s transparency. And thus far, we’ve not found anything ourselves.

Are there extra steps of transparency that you’ve taken in this hyperpartisan era when the process itself is contested?

We do what we’ve always done. This is a unique election as a recall. But keep in mind, we’ve had four or five elections this year, special elections, as well as last November.

Anytime we discover something that might be an area of concern, we do our best to make sure that we shore that up. If we discover that somebody is complaining that the signs are too small, they couldn’t really see a sign at a voting booth, we try to make sure that next time, we do more. If folks feel disenfranchised because of language, if there’s enough folks in that community, we make sure that we increase the number of languages and make sure that those languages are clear.

And so it’s not like we are gearing up because Mr. Elder says something or someone else says something. We are aware that the question of fraud or questions of transparency are constant. And, as I travel to different registrars’ offices, I see them responding to different issues, like making sure that there’s space that people can observe the opening of ballots.

When I was in one area, they had basically created pathways for folks to be able to do that. So those are the kinds of things that we respond to all the time to make sure that those who want to build issues of transparency and fairness have an opportunity to do so.

The chef Thomas Keller took over the Yountville restaurant in the mid-90s and defined that era’s American fine-dining sensibility, equal parts playful and extravagant. Reservations were (and continue to be) impossible. Dishes such as the silky tuna tartare, held in a tiny, crisp cone, were (and continue to be) widely replicated, though most restaurants simply can’t replicate the atmosphere — the lush gardens, the perfume of fresh black truffles, the perfectly pressed uniforms.

As a line cook in my 20s, I studied the recipes and photographs in The French Laundry cookbook, hoping its knowledge would transfer to me, reading and rereading it so many times that the pages became soft and worn at the edges. But not long before Governor Newsom attended that private party, fueling support for the recall, I wrote about how a meal there felt a bit like sneaking onto an opulent spaceship, orbiting a burning planet. I was uncomfortable with its excess.

The restaurant’s luxurious ingredients, meticulous techniques and impeccable, formal service appeared as a kind of culinary anachronism. The 10-course tasting menu cost about $350 per person, and, during the pandemic, the restaurant started private indoor dining at $850 per person.

It’s no surprise the restaurant has become such an essential part of the recall narrative. Dinner at The French Laundry isn’t so much dinner anymore as it is a status symbol, like macaroni and cheese served in a giant golden egg.

Mr. Orbeta was one of many voters to cite Mr. Newsom’s handling of the coronavirus in voting to keep him in office.

Over 80 percent of eligible residents have been vaccinated in the heavily Democratic San Francisco, which along with the surrounding Bay Area was one of the first places to shut down in March 2020.

“A lot of California got out in front of it, and acting early was helpful,” said Wayne Losey, 54, who was voting in Chinatown before dropping his daughter off at school. Many voters said that while they had concerns about Mr. Newsom — “not progressive enough,” in the opinion of Rebecca Foster, a Mission resident, or “a little corporate,” as Mr. Losey put it — the alternative, Larry Elder, was worse.

Lachlan Ashenmiller, 22, was put off by Mr. Elder’s support for eliminating the minimum wage and his suggestion that slave owners, not descendants of slaves, could be owed reparations. “I’m not a huge Newsom fan, but I don’t want Elder,” said Mr. Ashenmiller, who said he got his information from friends posting infographics on Instagram and journalists he follows on Twitter.

But a few voters said they were supporting Mr. Elder in the recall. They pointed to local issues, like homelessness, in explaining their vote: “Filthy, nasty, crime rate’s up,” Patrick Harris, 53, said of his Tenderloin neighborhood.

At City Hall, bright blue tents signaling ballot drop-off sites dotted Civic Center Plaza. Volunteers played music and passed around a pink bakery box full of sesame balls. “Better late than never!” said one voter, pulling up in a silver Subaru Forester to drop off her ballot. “You’re not late,” replied Nate Orman, a public-school teacher volunteering at the drop-off site. “You’re right on time.”

People lined up to vote outside the Central Library in Huntington Beach in Orange County, while election workers delivered registrar supplies. Richard Thompson, an assistant election manager, prepared for Election Day in the Redwood Playhouse in Garberville, Calif.; and one voter in Anaheim was accompanied by her young child as she cast a ballot in the recall election.

Statewide, some 13 million ballots were left to be cast or postmarked on Election Day, but the race was expected to have high turnout overall for an off-year election.

Mr. Newsom, for his part, has insisted that California can’t afford to ignore the threat of global warming, particularly in the midst of yet another devastating wildfire season. He has vowed to speed up efforts to cut the state’s emissions, with plans to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 and restrict oil and gas drilling.

The outcome of the election could have nationwide implications for efforts to tackle global warming, given California’s vast size and influence. The state has long pioneered major climate policies, such as laws to bolster renewable energy or electric vehicles, that have later been copied by other states.

Any new governor would be unlikely to overturn many of California’s key climate laws, not least because the legislature would remain under Democratic control. But, experts said, that could still leave room for major changes. A new governor could, for instance, rescind Mr. Newsom’s order to phase out new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 or his push to restrict oil and gas drilling, since those were issued by executive order. And any governor would also have broad influence over agency appointments and in shaping how existing climate laws are implemented.

“There’s the real potential for a huge shift in direction,” said Richard Frank, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Davis. “California has had substantial influence over the direction of climate policy both nationally and internationally, and that could easily wane.”

On Monday, President Biden visited California to campaign for Mr. Newsom and to survey the damage from the state’s recent wildfires. While Mr. Biden highlighted the role of climate change in fueling larger fires, he left unsaid a second part: If California does decide to shift course on climate policy, it will be much harder for the president to fulfill his promises of cutting greenhouse gas emissions across the country.

Because of the coronavirus, lawmakers ensured that ballots would automatically be mailed to every registered, active voter, turning an already popular option into the default through at least the end of this year.

As a result, political experts tracking returns in the recall are predicting that at least 50 percent of registered voters will cast ballots, roughly double the turnout that would be expected in a special election.

Lindsay Henry, 41, dropped off her ballot with her 19-year-old son, Tyler, at the Oak Knoll Village clubhouse in Ladera Ranch.

While her son voted for the recall, she said she voted against it.

“I’m definitely not a Gavin fan,” she said. “I just think it’s a waste of money if we’re going to have to do this again next year.”

Both mother and son chose Anthony Trimino, “a Laderian” they know personally, on the second question.

“He’s very faith-based and generous,” Ms. Henry said.

“He’s a good speaker,” her son added.

Candice Carvalho, 42, cast her ballot against the recall because, she said, “I thought it was important to show that Orange County isn’t just Republicans.”

She expressed frustration that the recall was taking so much attention at a critical moment in the pandemic.

“It was a waste of money and completely unnecessary,” she said. “And I’m a little shocked we’re focusing on this now.”

Ms. Carvalho said she doesn’t know much about the specifics of the recall law, but “it seems slightly too easy to put this recall on.”

A handful of voters heading into the polls said they were supporting the recall.

Leslie Geer, 39, who wore a flowered tennis skirt, was among them. The teaching assistant and mother of three said she wanted to vote in person because she was worried about mail-in ballot fraud.

She planned to vote for Larry Elder, who she said she listened to growing up, because he planned to lift vaccine mandates.

But, she said, “anyone would be better than Gavin Newsom,” who she blamed for poverty, homelessness and high taxes.

“We just need a fresh start,” she said.

At Mr. Elder’s campaign events in Los Angeles County on Monday — the last on his schedule, save for a “victory party” Tuesday night at a hotel in Orange County — there seemed to be nearly as many journalists in attendance as supporters. He spoke in Monterey Park, at a hilltop park in San Pedro, with the Pacific Ocean and the Port of Los Angeles in the background, and dropped in during lunch time at Philippe the Original, famous for its French dip sandwiches.

In remarks outside City Hall in Monterey Park, a city in the eastern part of Los Angeles County that is majority Asian American, Mr. Elder sought to harness anger among conservatives and others over Mr. Newsom’s coronavirus shutdowns last year, and linked that issue with another that Mr. Elder has highlighted and run on: the failure of public schools, which were largely closed down last year in favor of remote learning, and support for school choice.

“As Gavin Newsom sat at the French Laundry restaurant with the very people that drafted the mandates that they were violating, they weren’t wearing masks, they weren’t engaging in social distancing, Gavin Newsom’s own kids were enjoying in-person private education,” he told a gathering of several dozen supporters, referring to a dinner Mr. Newsom, unmasked, attended last year at a wine country restaurant, an episode that energized the recall movement.

Taking a page from former President Donald Trump’s playbook, Mr. Elder’s campaign has also sought to stoke fears of rising crime and has portrayed the conservative radio host as someone who can restore “law and order.”

During the campaign, Mr. Elder has suggested if he loses he might blame voter fraud, just as Mr. Trump falsely did. On Monday, though, he didn’t take the bait when asked if he would accept the results if he loses (polls show that Mr. Newsom is likely to win.)

“Yes, because I’m going to win,” he told reporters in San Pedro. “I’ll be very happy with the results. I anticipate winning, so there won’t be a question about the results because I’m going to win.”

Just a few miles away from Richard Nixon’s birthplace, voters lined up at a Yorba Linda park at a steady clip, many there at the urging of Republican leaders who had told them, without evidence, that casting a ballot by mail was less secure.

“We’ve gotten a governor out of office before — we can do it again, and we should do it again,” Ms. Vonidstein said, adding that she strongly opposed any change to the recall system, which has been widely criticized.

“We elect them, and if they are not doing a good job, we should be able to remove them, just like a business.”

For Jose Zenon, a Republican who runs an event-planning business with his wife, it is both the pandemic restrictions and the high taxes that infuriate him. Like other opponents of Mr. Newsom, he pointed to examples of his friends leaving for other states, such as Texas, Arizona and Nevada.

“That train out of here is really long, and we might be getting on it, too,” he said, just after voting for Larry Elder, the Republican front-runner and conservative talk-radio host. “The rules this governor made put a lot of businesses in an impossible position — we were without income for 10 months. Here we live in a condo, we want to have a home, but it’s just impossible. Something’s got to change.”

Ms. Santos said that she was among those who would favor changing the process to eliminate the possibility of a small group “so easily,” in her view, triggering a recall to remove a governor from office.

She is part of a growing chorus of people in the state calling for California’s system of direct democracy to be reformed.

To put a recall on the ballot, supporters must collect signatures equivalent to only 12 percent of all the votes cast in the last election for governor, the least of any state in which a governor can be removed by a recall vote.

The state has allowed recall elections since 1911, and every governor in the last six decades has faced a recall effort. Two, including the effort against Mr. Newsom, have qualified for the ballot. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was removed from office in 2003 and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

A few feet from the polling station, typing on his laptop under the shade of a tree, was Jacob Sainz, who said he had voted “Definitely no” to recalling Mr. Newsom. He lamented that 1.5 million signatures were all it took to force an expensive election to take place.

“The governor’s almost at the end of his term,” said Mr. Sainz, a 28-year-old brand manager. “It’s a waste of money. A big waste of money.”

Plus, he noted, “I don’t disagree with most of his policies.”

Mr. Newsom is likely to survive the recall, according to polls. But not all voters in the area, the heart of a large Russian immigrant community, felt the campaign was for naught.

Dmitriy Belyavskiy emerged from the voting site decked out in a Trump 2020 cap, Trump wristband and a mask inscribed with “All aboard the Trump train.”

“Newsom is a big jerk. He destroyed California,” declared Mr. Belyavskiy, 45, a chess and history tutor who said that he had served in the U.S. Army after immigrating to the United States when he was 19.

His voice bristling with contempt, he listed grievances that he felt justified recalling the governor. “Illegal immigrants swarming in and stealing low-paying jobs; crazy taxes; high gas prices; the homeless crisis; crime,” he said.

Mr. Belyavskiy said he had voted “loud and proud” for Larry Elder, the top Republican contender.

But changing it is a difficult two-step process that includes amendments to the State Constitution.

But experts say that the political landscape in California has shifted significantly over the past 18 years, with a smaller share of Republicans and more hardened party lines making a recall less likely.

Between 2003 and 2021, the fraction of registered Republican voters in California plummeted to 24 percent from 35 percent, while Californians registered as Democrats increased slightly, to 46 percent from 44 percent, according to state data.

Voters registered without a party preference increased to 23 percent from 16 percent, and those voters tend to lean Democratic, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

These shifts have resulted in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one. That means that if everyone voted in this election, and voted along party lines, it would be impossible for Newsom to be ousted. (Recalling Mr. Newsom requires approval from more than half of voters.)

If overall election turnout hits even 60 percent, the proposed ouster of Mr. Newsom would be highly unlikely because of how many voters are Democrats, according to Paul Mitchell, a vice president of Political Data Inc., a nonpartisan supplier of election data.

This is a different scenario than in 2003, when Republicans weren’t such a small share of the electorate and the election didn’t fall so clearly along party lines, said Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.

Then, it was more common to hear Democrats opposing the Democratic governor, Mr. Sonenshein said. And Mr. Schwarzenegger had cross-aisle appeal as a moderate Republican, and also a movie star.

“Arnold was to many Dems a perfectly acceptable alternative,” Mr. Sonenshein said. “Today the party lines are much harder.”

Political experts have been saying for weeks that Mr. Newsom’s success in beating back the recall hinges on boosting election turnout.

But, for Mr. Davis, who was battling Mr. Schwarzenegger’s star power and his own lower-approval ratings, “It wasn’t clear in 2003 that it was about turnout,” Mr. Sonenshein said.

In fact, 61 percent of Californians voted in the 2003 recall election, far higher than what would typically be expected for a special election. And Mr. Davis still lost.

Mr. Newsom was joined by President Biden at a campaign rally in Long Beach on Monday night. Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio personality and the front-runner to replace Mr. Newsom if he is recalled, addressed a group of volunteers at a rally in Costa Mesa, in Orange County. And on Monday, voters were turning in ballots at vote centers across the state, including at City Hall in San Francisco and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Pasadena.

Roughly 8.7 million ballots had been returned before Tuesday, the official Election Day and the last day to return ballots in person or by mail. Of those, a majority, 52 percent, were from registered Democrats; nearly 26 percent were from Republicans, and nearly 23 percent were from voters who belonged to another party or declined to state a preference.