Ethnic Voters’ Decisive Role in California Recall

Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service

California Gov. Gavin Newsom easily kept his governorship in the September 14 statewide recall election, with several outlets, including Insider, calling the race less than an hour after polls closed across the state.  In major metropolitan areas and populous counties, more than 80% of Latino voters voted against the recall, which prevented him from becoming the second governor of California to be deposed. In the vote, 62.7% opposed and 37.3% supported it. Although the final result will not be released until October 22, the overall situation for Newsom to retain the governorship is determined.

Polling and post-election analysis show that a majority of California’s ethnic voters overwhelmingly rejected the governor’s recall and, in some cases, helped turn large counties and suburbs in the governor’s favor. At the same time, many voters of color did not participate. Latinos played a key role in this election with an overwhelming refusal to remove the governor. While Asians accounted for a considerable proportion of Republican votes in Orange County, the voting results also continued to tilt in the direction of the Democratic Party.

Raphe Sonenshein, Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State LA said it’s a real positive for Newsom going forward. He said that minority voters could have more diverse performances in this election, but in fact they did not show a particularly typical pattern, and some communities barely voted. The decision is the same. He believes that the pre-election survey data of various polling agencies may seriously deviate from the actual results. Some agencies use more than a thousand people as poll samples. The survey results may be very subjective and severely weaken the significance of election predictions.

Sonja Diaz, Founding Director, UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI) said many latinos choose the last day to vote at the polling station. The voter turnout of Latinos in the recall election far exceeded expectations. The election results showed that in Los Angeles County, as many as 83% of Latino voters opposed the removal of Newsom; in Orange County, where Democratic votes have increased since 2018, 81% of Latinos opposed the removal of Newsom, from the Republic of San Diego. In the base camp of party candidates, 81% of Latinos also oppose the removal. Central California, which has always been considered a conservative region, also has an overwhelming majority of Latinos opposed to the removal. For example, in Madera County, 81% of Latinos opposed the removal; in Sonoma County, 75% of Latino voters opposed the election. In the Northern California Bay Area, 88% of Hispanics opposed the removal, and 82% of Latino voters in San Francisco also voted against it.

Jonathan Paik, Executive Director of Orange County Civic Engagement Table (OCCET Action) said that Orange County has always been a conservative county in California. Many people and businesses have not yet recovered from the epidemic. Therefore, everyone is most concerned about the impact of the removal of the governor on their lives. In fact, many local residents of Asia-Pacific descent did not care about the recall election, and many people did not vote. Some people believe that if the recall is successful, their minimum wage may be affected.