Elections

The US president Joe Biden has called the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison ‘that fella down under’ during a virtual announcement of a trilateral security partnership. The leaders of Australia, UK and the US announced the three-way deal will involve helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. 
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The US, the UK and Australia have announced they are setting up a trilateral security partnership aimed at confronting China, which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. US President Joe Biden, UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced the deal together virtually

US, UK and Australia forge military alliance to counter China
Australia nuclear submarine deal: defence pact with US and UK means $90bn contract with France will be scrapped
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The only exit poll from California’s recall election showed Mr. Newsom winning with an unusual coalition. In a departure from nearly every recent election, longstanding racial and ethnic divides between white voters and voters of color seemed to vanish.According to the exits, 63 percent of people of color and 60 percent of Latino voters chose “No” on the question of whether to remove the governor, compared to 59 percent of white voters. Typically, Democrats fare somewhat worse among white voters in California, but much better among other voters. The 63 percent and 60 percent showings of people of color and Latinos would be the weakest for a California Democrat in memory.If true, the exit poll result would mark a seminal moment in California’s political evolution. It would suggest that growing Democratic strength among college graduates — and weakness among those without degrees — has begun to significantly reduce the gap between white voters and others, and nearly eliminate it altogether in the state.But the actual results of the recall election tell a different story. They don’t show much of anything unusual at all. The results suggest that Mr. Newsom won with a fairly typical coalition for a California Democrat in recent years, one not too dissimilar from the one that elected him in 2018 and elected President Biden in 2020.The governor may have fared somewhat worse among nonwhite voters than Democrats did a decade ago, but in the end, California voted for the Democrat — and it seems to have done so in about the same way it has in recent cycles, including among Asian and Latino voters.Millions of votes remain to be counted, and a clearer picture may emerge in the coming days as more votes are tallied. But so far, the county-by-county results are nearly identical to those from 2018 or 2020. There’s only one county — Riverside County — that flipped from 2018 so far, and it flipped to Mr. Newsom.On average in the recall election, the “No” vote in a typical county was only about 2 percentage points different than Mr. Newsom’s vote share in 2018. It’s hard to reconcile the stability of the results so far with the huge shift in Mr. Newsom’s coalition indicated by the exit poll. The results don’t show evidence of a stark drop-off in Democratic support among Latino voters, either.Mr. Newsom performed about as well as he did four years ago in relatively diverse Southern California, including in heavily Latino stretches of the rural Central Valley and the Imperial Valley, where Democrats only compete on the strength of Latino voters.Still, Mr. Newsom’s support there was already relatively weak for a Democrat: He often fared about as poorly as Mr. Biden, and worse than Gov. Jerry Brown did in 2014. The 2018 exit poll showed Mr. Newsom winning 64 percent of Latino voters, down from the 73 percent share won by Mr. Brown in 2014.The exit poll on Tuesday was conducted by Edison Research and sponsored by major television news networks. Unlike traditional in-person exit polls, most California exit poll interviews are typically conducted by telephone to reach early and mail-in voters. This year, the recall exit poll added an online and text message component.It is possible the additional online and text interviews may have contributed to some of the unusual shifts that were apparent in the poll. More

Pennsylvania Republicans moved on Wednesday to seek personal information on every voter in the state as part of a brewing partisan review of the 2020 election results, rubber-stamping more than a dozen subpoenas for driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.The expansive request for personal information, directed at Pennsylvania’s Department of State and approved in a vote by Republicans on a State Senate subcommittee, is the first major step of the election inquiry. The move adds Pennsylvania to a growing list of states that have embarked on partisan-led reviews of the 2020 election, including a widely criticized attempt to undermine the outcome in Arizona’s largest county.Democrats in the State Senate pledged to fight the subpoenas in court, saying at a news conference after the vote on Wednesday that the requests for identifiable personal information were an overreach, lacked authority and potentially violated federal laws protecting voter privacy. “Senate Democrats, going forward, intend to take legal action against this gross abuse of power by filing a lawsuit, challenging in the courts, and to ask the courts to declare the Senate Republicans’ actions in violation of separation of power, as well as declaring that they had no authority to issue these subpoenas,” said State Senator Jay Costa, the minority leader.Democrats control several of the top offices in Pennsylvania — including those of governor, attorney general and secretary of state — and it was not immediately clear what legal basis they might have to challenge the subpoenas. Nor was it clear how the transfer of information would begin to take place, if it does proceed, or which people or entities involved in the review would control the information. While the review will be funded by taxpayers, its potential cost has yet to be revealed. The Department of State did not respond to requests for comment or issue a statement on the subpoenas. Josh Shapiro, the attorney general of Pennsylvania and a Democrat, vowed to fight the subpoenas as well. “There are legal consequences to turning over people’s private, personal information without their permission,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview. “My office will not allow that to happen. And people can be assured that we will take whatever legal action necessary to protect their private personal information from this charade.”The subpoenas, 17 in all, also included a request for communications between state and county election officials. They did not include requests for election machines or equipment.But election experts still expressed worries about the amount of personal information being requested and the security risks, both to voters and to the electoral process, that could come with such a transfer of information. Such risks have grown increasingly common in partisan election reviews around the country. “That’s a really bad idea to have private information floating around in a Senate caucus,” said Marian K. Schneider, an elections lawyer for the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania. “And it’s really not clear how the data is going to be used, who’s going to be looking at it, who can have access, how it’s going to be secured. And it’s unclear to me why they even need the personally identifying information.” Republicans in several states have pursued similar reviews — misleadingly labeled “audits” to suggest an authoritative nonpartisan investigation — in the name of protecting “election integrity.” The reviews have often centered on baseless claims and debunked conspiracy theories about the presidential contest, spurred in part by the falsehoods promoted by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies.President Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes, and the results have been reaffirmed by the state’s Department of State.“The entirety of our proceedings today, issuing subpoenas, is based upon such a noncredible foundation,” said Anthony H. Williams, a Democratic state senator who represents an area near Philadelphia. He added that it was “very troubling and, in fact, leads us to darker days in this country, such as when hearings like these, during the McCarthy era, were held, where voices were silenced and liberties were denied, being bullied by the power of the government.”State Senator Jake Corman, the top Republican in the chamber, who approved the review last month, portrayed the investigation as merely trying to inform future legislation and lashed back at Democrats, asking what they were “scared of.”“All we’re doing is seeking facts, seeking information, so that we can make better public policy,” Mr. Corman said. When questioned by Democrats about why voters’ Social Security and driver’s license information was necessary for the investigation, State Senator Cris Dush, who is leading the review as chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, brought up unspecific and unfounded claims that ineligible voters had cast ballots in the Pennsylvania election. “Because there have been questions regarding the validity of people who have voted, whether or not they exist,” Mr. Dush said. “Again, we’re not responding to proven allegations, we are investigating the allegations to determine whether or not they are factual.” He continued: “If we have the sum errors within the voter registration system which allow for such activity, then we have a responsibility as a legislature to create legislation which will prevent that from happening in future elections.”A chief concern of Democrats, beyond the subpoenas, was which people or companies might gain access to the stockpile of personal information of the nearly seven million Pennsylvanians who cast a ballot in the 2020 election.State Senator Steven J. Santarsiero, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs, pressed Mr. Dush on his selection process. Mr. Santarsiero asked specifically whether any of the vendors the Republicans are considering have ties to Sidney Powell, the lawyer who has popularized many false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.“The answer to that is I really don’t know, because it is not something that is relevant to my determination,” Mr. Dush responded.“So it’s possible, then?” Mr. Santarsiero asked.“It is absolutely possible,” Mr. Dush said. More

Five of the opposition leader’s exiled allies are engineering an election campaign that they hope will put dozens of Kremlin opponents into Parliament.MOSCOW — In an undisclosed location outside Russia, five people have been meeting regularly for months to plot out how to deliver an improbable blow to President Vladimir V. Putin in this weekend’s Russian election.The five are allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, all of them exiled because of the threat of lengthy jail sentences. Their strategy is to use the parliamentary election that runs from Friday to Sunday to undermine Mr. Putin’s ruling United Russia party — even though the authorities have barred just about all Navalny backers and other well-known opposition figures from getting on the ballot.The idea, which Mr. Navalny calls smart voting, is to coalesce opposition-minded voters around one particular candidate running against United Russia in each of the country’s 225 electoral districts. That candidate could be a liberal, a nationalist or a Stalinist. Before Russians go to the polls, they can punch their address into the “Navalny” smartphone app, which then responds with the names of the candidates they should vote for — whether or not voters agree with those persons’ views.“We want as many non-Kremlin-approved politicians as possible to end up in Parliaments, including regional ones,” Ruslan Shaveddinov, one of the Navalny allies working on the “smart voting” push, said in a telephone interview. “This, at any rate, creates turbulence in the system, which is very, very important to us.”The smart voting strategy shows how an opposition movement that the Kremlin has managed to crush inside Russia in recent months is still able to influence political events from the outside. It is also a reason this weekend’s elections will come with a degree of suspense, even though an overall victory for United Russia is assured.“If you get the name of a candidate through smart voting and go to the polls, you will become 1,000 percent more influential and powerful than that version of you that complains and does nothing,” Mr. Navalny wrote in a letter from prison published Wednesday, imploring his supporters to vote. “Don’t you want to try?” he asked. “And also become a better version of yourself?”A similar tactical voting strategy has been tried before, not always with success. Brexit opponents employed it in Britain’s 2019 parliamentary elections but failed, as the Labour Party suffered the worst defeat in decades at the hands of the Conservatives.However, Russia is a far different case. Its nominal democracy is not free and fair, but the Kremlin still seeks the sheen of popular legitimacy by holding elections in which a stable of dull parties typically splits the opposition vote. The Navalny strategy, first deployed regionally in 2019, seeks to turn that system of “managed democracy” against Mr. Putin. While Mr. Navalny’s personal approval rating remains low in Russia — the independent pollster Levada put it at 14 percent in June — the authorities appear spooked by his team’s push.Face masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, left, among others are displayed for sale at a street souvenir shop last week in St. Petersburg, Russia.Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated PressThe Russian internet regulator has blocked access to the smart voting website and demanded that Google and Apple remove “Navalny” from their app stores. The companies have not done so, prompting fresh allegations of American interference in Russian elections. Maria V. Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, claimed without offering evidence that smart voting was affiliated with the Pentagon.Last week, the Foreign Ministry summoned the American ambassador in Moscow, John J. Sullivan, to present what it described as “incontrovertible proof of violation of Russian law by American ‘digital giants’ in the context of the preparation and conduct of the elections.”Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist at the European University at St. Petersburg who has studied smart voting, says the Kremlin has good reason to be nervous. Even a state-run pollster, VTsIOM, puts United Russia’s current level of support at 29 percent — down from about 40 percent ahead of the last election, in 2016. Given that Russia’s single-mandate districts require only a simple majority to win, he said, a few additional percentage points generated by smart voting could be enough to push a challenger past United Russia in a competitive field.To be sure, the notion of success is relative. United Russia is almost certain to retain its majority in the lower house of Parliament, the Duma, because half of the 450 seats are apportioned by party list. The ruling party is sure to get the most votes, and Russian elections are rife with fraud.But Mr. Navalny’s allies say that even electing a few dozen new members of Parliament who oppose United Russia would be significant, because it would complicate the Kremlin’s dealings with what in recent years has been little but a rubber-stamp legislature. And they insist that in much of the country, the vote-counting process is transparent enough to make an attempt to unseat United Russia lawmakers by democratic means worthwhile. For now, the main opposition parties in Parliament, the Communists and nationalists, have been mostly loyal to Mr. Putin. But that could change.“If more serious political complications were to begin in Russia for some reason, then control of Parliament becomes critical,” Mr. Golosov said. “If the Kremlin weakens in the eyes of the opposition parties, they will start acting in their own interests.”Mr. Navalny’s staff members say they spent months analyzing every federal electoral district, as well as regional and city elections that are also being held this weekend. The team of five analysts spearheading the project — Mr. Shaveddinov; Mr. Navalny’s longtime chief of staff, Leonid Volkov; and three others — have been gathering for hourslong meetings multiple times a week. Mr. Shaveddinov said they consulted polling data, dozens of regional experts and reports from the ground to determine the person best positioned to defeat the United Russia candidate in each contest.They also point to the 2019 elections to the Moscow City Duma, in which 20 candidates picked by Mr. Navalny’s team won, diluting the number of United Russia members in the legislature from 38 to 25, out of 45 seats.“The Kremlin is trying to roll over all of politics with concrete,” Mr. Shaveddinov said. “And still, various flowers bloom.”Mr. Shaveddinov, who is 25, fled Russia earlier this year. He spent 2020 in what he describes as modern-day exile, detained and sent to a year of mandatory military service at a remote outpost on an island in the Arctic Ocean. Now he is abroad, hosting weekly YouTube shows with Mr. Volkov that seek to mobilize support for the smart voting strategy. Russian law enforcement officers attempting to detain Ruslan Shaveddinov in 2017, during a rally in Moscow. Evgeny Feldman/ReutersMr. Navalny, Russia’s best-known opposition figure, was poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent last year and arrested in January upon returning to Moscow from treatment in Germany. Nationwide protests followed his return, and Russia outlawed his movement and forced his top allies to flee. On Wednesday, the Navalny team published its 1,234 federal and regional voting recommendations, waiting until two days before the start of the election in order to prevent its picks from being removed from the ballot. For those who installed “Navalny” on their smartphones, the news arrived by push notification: “Your candidates are already in the app. Open it, look and vote!”More than half the Duma candidates the team endorsed were Communists — even though the party’s leader, Gennadi A. Zyuganov, this year called Mr. Navalny “a traitor who arrived to set the country on fire.”The strategy has stirred some discontent among Kremlin critics, especially in places like Moscow and St. Petersburg where several opposition candidates are running in the same district. The risk is that the Navalny team could misjudge which candidate has the most support, and end up splitting rather than consolidating the opposition vote.In District 198, in Moscow, the Navalny team chose Anastasiya Bryukhanova, a 28-year-old manager who works on urban improvement projects. Another opposition candidate running in the same district, Marina Litvinovich, took to Twitter and Facebook to call the decision “a big mistake” and stopped short of endorsing Ms. Bryukhanova.Marina Litvinovich speaking to her potential voters last month in Moscow.Daniel Kozin/Associated PressIn an interview, Ms. Bryukhanova estimated that the smart voting endorsement could add at least seven percentage points to her result.“This significantly increases our chances of victory,” she said.The goal of smart voting is to motivate people like Azalia Idrisova, a 33-year-old entrepreneur in the mental health field in Moscow who said she was overwhelmed by the number of candidates and political parties on the ballot. She said she would follow the smart voting recommendations, even though she expected the election results to be falsified.“All I can do is to go vote,” she said.Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting. More

If there was a breakout star of California’s recall election, it was Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host who, over the course of the spring and summer, turned himself into a bona fide Trump-era political celebrity.Mr. Elder was the leading Republican vote-getter in all 58 California counties. Statewide, he was first on the question of who should replace Gov. Gavin Newsom if he were removed from office, with the only exception being in San Francisco, where a little-known Democrat had 21 percent of the vote early Wednesday.Mr. Elder has appeared on Fox News 52 times this year and won a platform that he is unlikely to relinquish. Last month, he told a local television reporter in Sacramento that is he is “very likely” to run for governor in 2022, when Mr. Newsom will be facing re-election. His 47 percent vote total on the replace Newsom question makes him a formidable foe against any other Republican candidate.Yet as Mr. Elder has captured the heart of California’s Trumpian base, his candidacy demonstrated the limitations of that strategy. Mr. Newsom coasted to a recall victory with a margin nearly identical to President Biden’s 2020 victory in California; Mr. Elder did not bring any new voters to the Republican Party in a state where Democrats hold a nearly two-to-one voter registration advantage.Winning office may not be the goal.Conservative figures can make a good living on Fox News appearances, and Mr. Elder is skilled at communicating with a right-wing audience from his years on the radio. There is a list of candidates who have lost high-profile races only to transform themselves into political celebrities with large platforms as they seek office again: Democrats Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Beto O’Rourke in Texas and Republicans John James in Michigan and Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania among them.Mr. Elder’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Marshall, on Wednesday morning declined to comment about his future plans. She wouldn’t say if his vow to run again remained operative. During a concession speech on Tuesday night, Mr. Elder didn’t address 2022 but told his supporters to “stay tuned.”“We may have lost the battle,” he said, “but we are going to win the war.” More

Los votantes reafirmaron el abrumador respaldo que le dieron al gobernador Gavin Newsom en 2018.Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a victory speech after defeating California’s Republican-led recall vote in a landslide.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesEntra aquí para enterarte de lo último sobre la victoria del gobernador Gavin NewsomSACRAMENTO — Un intento liderado por los republicanos para destituir al gobernador Gavin Newsom de California terminó en derrota el martes, ya que los demócratas en el estado más poblado de Estados Unidos cerraron filas contra un pequeño movimiento de base que se aceleró con la propagación de la COVID-19.Los votantes reafirmaron su apoyo a Newsom, cuya ventaja se hizo insuperable a medida que el recuento continuaba en el condado de Los Ángeles y otros grandes bastiones demócratas una vez cerradas las urnas. Larry Elder, un presentador de radio conservador, encabezó a los 46 aspirantes a convertirse en el próximo gobernador.La votación puso de manifiesto el poder de los votantes liberales en California: ningún republicano ha ocupado un cargo estatal en más de una década.Pero también reflejó el reciente progreso del estado contra la pandemia de coronavirus, que ha cobrado más de 67.000 vidas en California. El estado tiene una de las tasas de vacunación más altas del país y una de las tasas más bajas de nuevos casos del virus, que el gobernador argumentó incansablemente a los votantes que eran los resultados de sus mandatos de vacunación y del uso de mascarillas.Aunque los críticos de Newsom habían iniciado la revocatoria porque se oponían a sus posturas sobre la pena de muerte y la inmigración, fue la politización de la pandemia lo que la impulsó la votación, ya que los californianos se impacientaron con el cierre de empresas y aulas. En las encuestas, los californianos dijeron que ningún asunto era más urgente que el virus.“Como trabajador de la salud, era importante para mí tener un gobernador que siga la ciencia”, dijo Marc Martino, de 26 años, quien lucía una bata quirúrgica azul mientras dejaba su boleta en Irvine.Associated Press proclamó vencedor a Newsom, quien había ganado con un 62 por ciento de diferencia en 2018, menos de una hora después del cierre de las urnas el martes. Alrededor del 66 por ciento de los ocho millones de boletas contabilizadas hasta las 10 p. m., hora del Pacífico, decían que el gobernador debía permanecer en el cargo.“Parece que estamos disfrutando de un voto abrumadoramente por el ‘no’ esta noche, aquí en el estado de California, pero el ‘no’ no es lo único que se expresó esta noche”, dijo Newsom a los periodistas bien entrada la noche del martes.“Hemos dicho sí a la ciencia. Hemos dicho sí a las vacunas. Dijimos sí a acabar con esta pandemia. Dijimos sí al derecho de la gente a votar sin miedo al falso fraude y a la supresión de votantes. Dijimos sí al derecho constitucional fundamental de las mujeres a decidir por sí mismas lo que hacen con su cuerpo, su destino, su futuro. Dijimos sí a la diversidad”.En el condado de Orange, Elder habló ante un salón de baile repleto de simpatizantes y admitió el resultado. “Seamos amables en la derrota”, dijo, y añadió: “puede que hayamos perdido la batalla, pero vamos a ganar la guerra”.El resultado de la revocación, considerado un barómetro de las elecciones intermedias de 2022, supuso un alivio para los demócratas de todo Estados Unidos. Aunque las encuestas mostraban que la revocatoria contaba con la oposición de alrededor del 60 por ciento de los californianos, los sondeos realizados durante el verano sugerían que los probables votantes no estaban entusiasmados con Newsom. Sin embargo, a medida que se acercaba el plazo de las elecciones, su base se movilizó.El presidente Joe Biden, la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y las senadoras Elizabeth Warren, por Massachusetts, y Amy Klobuchar, por Minnesota, viajaron a California para hacer campaña por Newsom, mientras que el senador Bernie Sanders, por Vermont, y el expresidente Barack Obama aparecieron en sus anuncios. Unos 70 millones de dólares en contribuciones a su campaña fueron aportados por donantes demócratas, grupos tribales y empresariales y sindicatos.El gobernador acusó a los extremistas de extrema derecha y a los partidarios del expresidente Donald Trump de intentar una toma hostil en un estado en el que nunca podrían aspirar a conseguir un apoyo mayoritario en unas elecciones tradicionales. También contrastó las bajas tasas de infección por coronavirus de California con el gran número de muertes y hospitalizaciones en estados gobernados por los republicanos como Florida y Texas.Una marcha en contra de la revocatoria en Los Ángeles la semana pasadaAllison Zaucha para The New York TimesLas matemáticas electorales hicieron el resto: los demócratas superan en número a los republicanos dos a uno en California, y las normas de votación de la pandemia fomentaron una alta participación, permitiendo que las boletas se enviaran por correo a cada uno de los 22 millones de votantes activos registrados en el estado con los gastos de envío por correo ya pagados por anticipado. Más del 40 por ciento de esos californianos votaron anticipadamente.La revocatoria, iniciada por Orrin Heatlie —un republicano del norte de California y sargento jubilado de la oficina del alguacil—, fue una de las seis peticiones lideradas por los conservadores que comenzaron a circular a los pocos meses de la toma de posesión de Newsom.Los intentos de revocatoria son habituales en California, donde la democracia directa forma parte de la cultura política desde hace mucho tiempo. Sin embargo, solo otro intento de revocatoria de un gobernador ha llegado a las urnas: en 2003, cuando los californianos revocaron al gobernador Gray Davis tras los atentados del 11 de septiembre, la quiebra de las puntocoms y los continuos cortes de electricidad. Eligieron a Arnold Schwarzenegger para sustituir a Davis como gobernador, colocando a un republicano de centro en lugar de un demócrata de centro.Al principio, la petición de Heatlie tuvo dificultades para ganar terreno. Pero cobró fuerza a medida que la pandemia se extendía por California y Newsom tenía dificultades para contenerla. Los californianos, que al principio apoyaban las ordenanzas de salud del gobernador, se cansaron de los cierres de empresas y aulas, y el descontento público estalló en noviembre, cuando Newsom fue visto sin mascarilla en el French Laundry, un exclusivo restaurante de la región vinícola, tras instar al público a evitar las reuniones.Una orden judicial que prorrogaba el plazo de recogida de firmas debido a los confinamientos pandémicos permitió a los defensores de la destitución aprovechar la indignación y el malestar.A medida que el resultado de la elección revocatoria del martes se hacía evidente, Darry Sragow, estratega demócrata y editor de California Target Book, un almanaque político no partidista, dijo que el gobernador evitó “un asalto republicano” y “podría salir de esto más fuerte que nunca, dependiendo de su margen”.Los partidarios de la revocatoria también reclamaron parte de la gloria.“Éramos David contra Goliat, éramos el Álamo”, dijo Mike Netter, uno de los pocos activistas republicanos del Tea Party cuya ira por la oposición de Newsom a la pena de muerte, su apoyo a los trabajadores indocumentados y sus profundas raíces en la élite dominante ayudaron a inspirar el intento de destitución.El mero hecho de reunir los casi 1,5 millones de firmas necesarias para desencadenar la elección especial fue “un logro histórico”, dijo Heatlie.Mike Netter y Orrin Heatlie, quienes propusieron la revocatoria, dirigieron una reunión en Folsom en febrero.Max Whittaker para The New York TimesLa campaña por la revocatoria, dijeron los dos hombres, ha ampliado el pequeño grupo que comenzó el esfuerzo a una coalición estatal de 400.000 miembros que ya están ayudando a impulsar las propuestas de votación para financiar los bonos escolares, prohibir los mandatos de vacunación en las escuelas y abolir los sindicatos de empleados públicos, que han sido una fuerza demócrata de larga data en California.Otros republicanos, sin embargo, calificaron la revocatoria como un grave error de cálculo político. Alrededor de una cuarta parte de los votantes registrados en el estado son republicanos, y su número ha ido disminuyendo desde la década de 1990, una tendencia que los proponentes de la revocación creían que podría revertirse si de alguna manera podían cambiar el mando en el estado más grande del país.La derrota del martes —en unas elecciones especiales que costaron al estado unos 276 millones de dólares— supuso, en cambio, “otro clavo en el ataúd”, dijo Mike Madrid, un estratega republicano de California que ha sido muy crítico con el partido durante el mandato de Trump, acusando en particular al Partido Republicano de haber alejado a los votantes latinos.Madrid dijo que la revocatoria significaba que, incluso en California, el partido de Trump se había convertido en parte de “una base republicana cada vez más radical, ejercida y reducida, arremetiendo de diferentes maneras en diferentes partes del país”. Observó las acusaciones de fraude electoral que algunos en su partido empezaron a hacer mucho antes de que se cerraran las urnas, replicando a Trump, quien afirmó sin pruebas que los demócratas habían “amañado” las elecciones revocatorias.A pesar de la enorme diferencia de apoyos, por ejemplo, Elder exigió esta semana, antes de que terminara la votación, que se convocara una sesión legislativa especial “para investigar y mejorar los resultados torcidos”. Dijo que había habido “casos de boletas indocumentadas”, pero no dio ejemplos.Algunos observadores demócratas se mostraron circunspectos y advirtieron de que la perturbación causada por el intento de destitución apuntaba a problemas más profundos.“Esta revocatoria era un canario en la mina de carbón”, dijo Sragow, un veterano estratega demócrata que citó las disparidades de ingresos del estado, la escasez de vivienda y la crisis climática. “Y hasta que no se solucionen los problemas que lo crearon, la gente en el poder tiene problemas. Hay mucha rabia, miedo y frustración ahí fuera”.Trabajadores de un grupo de defensa de inmigrantes presentaron a Newsom a los votantes en Palmdale en agosto.Rozette Rago para The New York TimesLa votación del martes culminó un esfuerzo de casi un año del gobernador para persuadir a los votantes de que vean más allá de esa oscuridad. Desde principios de este año, cuando quedó claro que la revocatoria contaría con el dinero y el tiempo necesarios para ser sometida a votación, Newsom ha hecho campaña sin cesar.Aprovechando el enorme superávit del estado —resultado de un aumento más alto de lo esperado de los ingresos y de las cotizaciones bursátiles de los californianos más pudientes—, el gobernador se ha movido de forma agresiva para demostrar que el estado puede proteger su economía y frenar el virus. En los últimos meses, ha distribuido vacunas, ha limpiado la basura en los barrios abandonados por los californianos afectados por la pandemia, ha abierto habitaciones de motel a los californianos sin hogar, ha anunciado cheques de estímulo y ayudas al alquiler para los californianos pobres y de clase media y se ha puesto repetidamente delante de una cortina de lamé dorado para organizar una de las mayores loterías de vacunas del país.Los anteriores esfuerzos de destitución guiaron su estrategia política. A diferencia de Davis, cuyo vicegobernador se presentó como alternativa demócrata en la revocatoria de 2003, dando efectivamente permiso a los partidarios para destituir al gobernador, Newsom y su equipo despejaron rápidamente el campo de posibles alternativas demócratas.Al igual que Scott Walker, el exgobernador de Wisconsin y el único gobernador que había triunfado antes en una revocatoria, Newsom pintó el esfuerzo de destitución en términos nacionales y partidistas y rechazó una postura defensiva. Su estrategia impulsó a los principales donantes y a su base.Al igual que en 2003, cuando se enfrentó a un popular progresista para la alcaldía de San Francisco, Newsom enmarcó la carrera no como un referéndum sobre él, sino como una elección entre él mismo y una alternativa potencialmente catastrófica, en este caso, Elder, cuyo nombre reconocido lo elevó rápidamente a la cima de la lista de aspirantes.La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris se unió a Newsom en un mitin en San Leandro la semana pasada.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesSeñalando que Elder había construido una carrera atacando causas liberales, el gobernador lo pintó como un clon de Trump que impondría políticas de extrema derecha en un estado que ha sido un bastión del pensamiento liberal.“Vota no y sal de ahí”, dijo el gobernador a los votantes, sugiriendo que solo respondieran al llamado de oponerse a la revocatoria y que no respondieron la segunda pregunta de la boleta, que preguntaba quién debía sustituir a Newsom en caso de que la revocatoria triunfara.Millones de votantes eligieron no responder la segunda pregunta de la boleta; Elder recibió alrededor del 44 por ciento del voto de quienes sí lo hicieron. Kevin Paffrath, demócrata, y Kevin Faulconer, un republicano exalcalde de San Diego, habían recibido cada uno cerca del 10 por ciento de los votos a las 10 p. m., hora del Pacífico.Ni el apoyo republicano ni los fondos del partido se acercaron a la gran operación y presupuesto para la campaña que tenía Newsom a su disposición.California no limita los donativos a comités que trabajan a favor y en contra de las revocatorias, pero el estado limita las contribuciones a los candidatos de donantes individuales. Newsom capitalizó las reglas, recaudando más de 50 millones de dólares solo en donaciones de más de 100.000 dólares para oponerse a la revocatoria. Elder recaudó alrededor de 15 millones, y los comités que promovieron la revocatoria recaudaron aún menos fondos.Muchos donantes republicanos importantes comentaron que parecía inútil intentar revocar a un gobernador demócrata en un estado tan abrumadoramente liberal.Thomas Fuller More

California Democrats were able to nationalize the vote — thanks to an avalanche of money, party discipline and, above all, an easily demonized opponent.SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — California basks in its clairvoyance. “The future happens here first,” says Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling his state “America’s coming attraction.”By emphatically turning back the effort to recall him from office, however, Mr. Newsom made clear that California’s cherished role presaging the politics of tomorrow was not as significant as another, larger factor in Tuesday’s results: the tribal politics of today.The first-term Democratic governor will remain in office because, in a deeply liberal state, he effectively nationalized the recall effort as a Republican plot, making a flame-throwing radio host the Trump-like face of the opposition to polarize the electorate along red and blue lines.Mr. Newsom found success not because of what makes California different but because of how it’s like everywhere else: He dominated in California’s heavily populated Democratic cities, the key to victory in a state where his party outnumbers Republicans by five million voters.“Gavin may have been on a high wire, but he was wearing a big, blue safety harness,” said Mike Murphy, a California-based Republican strategist.The recall does offer at least one lesson to Democrats in Washington ahead of next year’s midterm elections: The party’s pre-existing blue- and purple-state strategy of portraying Republicans as Trump-loving extremists can still prove effective with the former president out of office, at least when the strategy is executed with unrelenting discipline, an avalanche of money and an opponent who plays to type.Larry Elder, the Republican front-runner in the bid to replace Mr. Newsom, thanked supporters at his election night party Tuesday at the Hilton Orange County in Costa Mesa.Mark Abramson for The New York Times“You either keep Gavin Newsom as your governor or you’ll get Donald Trump,” President Biden said at an election-eve rally in Long Beach, making explicit what Mr. Newsom and his allies had been suggesting for weeks about the Republican front-runner, the longtime radio host Larry Elder.By the time Mr. Biden arrived in California, Mr. Newsom was well positioned. Yet in the days leading up to the recall, he was warning Democrats of the right-wing threat they would face in elections across the country next November.“Engage, wake up, this thing is coming,” he said in an interview, calling Mr. Elder “a national spokesperson for an extreme agenda.”California, which has not elected a Republican governor since the George W. Bush administration, is hardly a top area of contention in next year’s midterms. Yet for Republicans eying Mr. Biden’s falling approval ratings and growing hopeful about their 2022 prospects, the failed recall is less an ominous portent than a cautionary reminder about what happens when they put forward candidates who are easy prey for the opposition.The last time Democrats controlled the presidency and both chambers of Congress, in 2010, the Republicans made extensive gains but fell short of reclaiming the Senate because they nominated a handful of candidates so flawed that they managed to lose in one of the best midterm elections for the G.O.P. in modern history.That’s to say that primaries matter — and if Republicans are to reclaim the Senate next year, party officials say, they will do so by elevating candidates who do not come with the bulging opposition research files of a 27-year veteran of right-wing radio.“Larry Elder saved their lives on this,” Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist in Sacramento, said of Democrats. “Until this race had a general election context, there was not a lot of enthusiasm for life in California. But when you have the near-perfect caricature of a MAGA candidate, well, you can turn your voters out.”Gray Davis, the Democratic former California governor who was recalled in 2003, put it more pithily: “He was a gift from God,” he said of Mr. Elder. “He conducted his entire campaign as if the electorate was conservative Republicans.”Gray Davis, center, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, who took the governor’s office from Mr. Davis after a 2003 recall election, watched Mr. Newsom’s inauguration in 2018.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesHungry for some good news after a bleak month, Democrats will nonetheless happily seize on Mr. Newsom’s apparent triumph. After all, Mr. Biden himself knows all too well from his experience as vice president in 2010 — when his party lost the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy — that even the safest-seeming races can’t be taken for granted in special elections.Moreover, Mr. Newsom’s success politically vindicates the president’s decision to enact a mandate on businesses to require the Covid-19 vaccine. The governor campaigned aggressively on his own vaccine requirements and lashed Mr. Elder for vowing to overturn them.In fact, before Mr. Biden announced that policy on Thursday, Mr. Newsom’s lieutenants believed they were showing the way for other Democrats — including the president. “We’re doing what the White House needs to do, which is get more militant on vaccines,” Sean Clegg, one of the governor’s top advisers, said in an interview last week.Historically, much of California’s political trendsetting has taken place on the right.From Ronald Reagan’s first election as governor, signaling the backlash to the 1960s, to the property-tax revolt of the 1970s, foreshadowing Reagan’s national success in the 1980s, the state was something of a conservative petri dish.Even in more recent years, as California turned to the left, it was possible to discern the Republican future in Gov. Pete Wilson’s hard line on illegal immigration in the 1990s, and in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s potent cocktail of celebrity, populism and platitudes in the 2000s.Earlier this summer, it appeared that, once again, California could augur national trends. Burdened by rising crime, homelessness and Covid fatigue, Mr. Newsom was seen in polls as in danger of being recalled.His challenge, however, was not a tidal wave of opposition, but Democratic apathy.That began to change when Mr. Newsom outspent his Republican opponents and supporters of the recall four-to-one on television over the summer. Voter sentiment turned even more sharply away from replacing him once Mr. Elder emerged, transforming the contest from a referendum on Mr. Newsom into a more traditional Republican-versus-Democrat election.Every Democratic campaign sign and handbill, and even the ballot itself that was mailed to registered California voters, termed the vote a “Republican Recall,” emblazoning a scarlet R on the exercise.“We defined this as a Republican recall, which is what it is,” Rusty Hicks, the California Democratic chairman, boasted shortly before Mr. Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage at a rally Sept. 8 near Oakland.A rare convergence of interests between Democrats and Republicans ultimately favored Mr. Newsom: The only people more thrilled to elevate the profile of Mr. Elder, a Black conservative who delights in puncturing liberal pieties, were the paid members of the governor’s staff.Mr. Elder campaigning in Monterey Park on Monday.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesMr. Elder appeared on Fox News in prime time 52 times this year, according to the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters. No other Republican candidate appeared more than eight times.While that exposure helped Mr. Elder become the most popular alternative, it served to undermine the cause of removing Mr. Newsom from office, by ensuring the contest would feel more like a general election than like the last, and to date only, successful California gubernatorial recall.In 2003, Mr. Schwarzenegger was better known for his Hollywood credits than for his politics. He also hammered away at a distinctly local issue, California’s tax on automobiles, which kept the race centered on state rather than federal policies. And the incumbent, Mr. Davis, was far more unpopular than Mr. Newsom is.California then was also a different state in a way that illustrates how politically polarized it has become. In 2000, Mr. Bush lost California by about 11 percentage points, while still carrying Republican redoubts like Orange and San Diego Counties. Last year, Mr. Trump was routed in the state by nearly 30 points and lost the same two counties decisively.“There is no safe landing place today for moderates because, even if you’re mad at Gavin, the alternative is Ron DeSantis,” said Mr. Murphy, alluding to the Trumpian Florida governor.Indeed, what so delighted conservatives about Mr. Elder — his slashing right-wing rhetoric — is what made him an ideal foil for Mr. Newsom.Mr. Newsom turned his stump speech into a chapter-and-verse recitation of the greatest hits on Mr. Elder: comments he made disparaging women, minimizing climate change and questioning the need for a minimum wage. Joined by a parade of brand-name national Democrats who arrived in California equipped with anti-Elder talking points, the governor spent more time warning about a Republican taking over than he did defending his record.He also invoked the specter of red states and their leaders, scorning Republicans’ handling of Covid, voting restrictions and, in the final days of the campaign, Texas’s restrictive new abortion law.While House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the most prominent California Republican, kept his distance from the recall, Mr. Newsom was regularly joined by Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation, who linked the recall to Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede defeat and to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.“A different type of insurrection in California,” as Representative Karen Bass put it at a rally in Los Angeles.Mr. Elder, for his part, happily ran as the provocateur he is, overwhelming more moderate G.O.P. hopefuls like former Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego. He vowed to end vaccine mandates for state employees the day he was sworn in, which prompted chants of “Larry, Larry!” from conservative crowds but alienated the state’s pro-vaccine majority.California recall supporters rallied for the Mr. Elder in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesMr. Newsom’s polling showed him leading 69-28 among Californians who said they were vaccinated, his advisers said, a significant advantage in a state where nearly seven in 10 adults have gotten their shots.The possibility that Elder-style figures could win primaries in more competitive states alarms many establishment-aligned Republicans as they assess the 2022 landscape.Nominees too closely linked to Mr. Trump, or laden with personal baggage, or both, could undermine the party’s prospects in states like Georgia, Arizona, Missouri and Pennsylvania that will prove crucial to determining control of the Senate.Similarly, Republicans could struggle in battleground governor’s races in Ohio, Georgia and Arizona if far-right candidates prevail in primaries thanks to Mr. Trump’s blessing.In few states, however, is the party’s Trump-era brand as toxic as it is in California.“This is not about Schwarzenegger, this is not even Scott Walker,” Mr. Newsom said, alluding to the former Republican governor of Wisconsin who fended off a recall. “This is about weaponizing this office for an extreme national agenda.”It is, the governor said, “Trump’s party, even here in California.” More