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      California effort to recall Gavin Newsom gets signatures needed to trigger vote

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      California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is set to face a recall election after organizers of the effort collected enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.The California secretary of state’s office announced Monday that more than 1.6m signatures had been verified, about 100,000 more than needed to force a vote on the first-term Democrat.A recall election would likely be held in the fall, when voters will first be asked whether Newsom be removed from office, and then, who should replace him. Responses to the latter question will only be counted if more than 50% vote to recall the governor. California is one of more than a dozen states that allow voters to hold recall elections.The recall effort is led by Republicans who opposed Democrat Newsom’s pandemic shutdowns and mask mandate, as well as his immigration and tax policies. The campaign has tried to distance itself from its ties to far-right groups, including QAnon, following the deadly 6 January attack on the US capitol. Petitioners collected a groundswell of supporters as the state faced its most deadly phase of the pandemic in the winter.Newsom will face off against an array of political challengers that includes a reality TV star and a former Facebook executive.Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic athlete known for her role in Keeping Up With the Kardashians, announced plans to run against Newsom last week.Other Republican challengers include Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018 by more than 20 points, and Doug Ose, a former congressman.The porn actor and reality TV star Mary Carey and the model Angelyne, who rose to prominence in the 1980s after she was featured in a series of iconic billboards around LA, are also running.In 2003, voters recalled Democratic governor Gray Davis and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is the only other recall of a California governor to qualify for the ballot.Newsom won election in 2018 with support from more than 60% of voters. Recalling him will be a tough sell in the heavily Democratic state where just a quarter of registered voters are Republicans, about the same number as those who identify as “no party preference”.But organizers see an opening by energizing voters who were angered by Newsom’s handling of the pandemic and those frustrated by one-party rule in Sacramento. Republicans have not won statewide office since 2006, when voters gave Schwarzenegger a second term.Republicans had already tried and failed to recall Newsom before. But the pandemic gave the latest recall effort new momentum, especially after the governor was caught last fall dining at a fancy restaurant for a lobbyist’s birthday while urging residents to stay home.Dozens of other candidates, serious and not, are expected to enter the race.Still, ousting Newsom remains an uphill battle. Speaking to the Guardian in March, Mindy Romero, the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a non-partisan research organization, described the recall as more of a strategy to rally Republican voters and raise funds, rather than a serious effort at leadership change.“The recall can be a rallying cry, in California and across the county,” Romero said. “For the Republican candidates running against the governor, it can raise their national profiles.”So far no other Democrats have announced plans to run against Newsom. The governor launched an anti-recall campaign in March, crafting the effort as one driven by Republican extremists and adherents to Donald Trump, who lost California twice.If Newsom survives the recall he will be up for re-election next year. More

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      Supreme Court Wary of Donor Disclosure Requirement for Charities

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      The case, from California, could affect the regulation of “dark money” in political contests.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday seemed skeptical of California’s demand that charities soliciting contributions in the state report the identities of their major donors.A majority of the justices appeared to agree that at least the two groups challenging the requirement — Americans for Prosperity, a foundation affiliated with the Koch family, and the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public-interest law firm — should prevail in the case.It was less clear whether the court would strike down the requirement entirely for all charities as a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of association. And the justices gave few hints about whether their ruling, expected by June, would alter the constitutional calculus in the related area of disclosure requirements for campaign spending.Justice Stephen G. Breyer repeated concerns expressed in supporting briefs that the case could have broad implications. “This case is really a stalking horse for campaign finance disclosure laws,” he said.In the context of elections, the Supreme Court has supported laws requiring public disclosure. In the Citizens United campaign finance decision in 2010, the court upheld the disclosure requirements before it by an 8-to-1 vote. In a second 8-to-1 decision that year, Doe v. Reed, the court ruled that people who sign petitions to put referendums on state ballots do not have a general right under the First Amendment to keep their names secret.If the approach of the groups challenging California’s requirement for charities were adopted, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “I don’t see how the public disclosure at issue in Doe would have survived.”Derek L. Shaffer, a lawyer for the challengers in Monday’s case, said that the electoral context was different and that charities needed protection given the nation’s volatile political climate. He added that California’s reporting requirement subjected donors to the real potential of harassment, particularly in light of the state’s history of failing to keep the donor lists secret.“Think about medical organizations that may take views about masking, about vaccinations,” he said.Contributing to a charity for Asian-Americans, he said, might have seemed uncontroversial not long ago. “But today, in 2021, sad to say,” he said, “it could be a life-or-death issue that their identities have been disclosed.”Justice Clarence Thomas appeared to agree that donors may be endangered by disclosures of their identities. “In this era,” he said, “there seems to be quite a bit of loose accusations about organizations — for example, an organization that had certain views might be accused of being a white supremacist organization or racist or homophobic.”The challengers received support from hundreds of groups across the ideological spectrum, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Cato Institute, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh read from a supporting brief filed by the last two groups: “A critical corollary of the freedom to associate is the right to maintain the confidentiality of one’s associations, absent a strong governmental interest in disclosure.”The case, Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, No. 19-251, concerned a requirement that charities file with California a copy of an Internal Revenue Service form that identifies major donors. Federal law requires the I.R.S. to keep the form confidential.California also promised to keep the forms secret, but it has not always done so. According to court papers, it had inadvertently displayed over 1,800 forms on its website. The state has said that it has imposed new security measures.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said there was little reason to trust the state. “The brief filed by the A.C.L.U. and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says that we should regard your system as a system of de facto public disclosure because there have been such massive confidentiality breaches in California,” he told Aimee A. Feinberg, a lawyer for California.She responded that a judge had said the state’s efforts “to rectify past lapses and to prevent them in the future were commendable.”Mr. Shaffer said California had other ways to investigate potential fraud, including by auditing individual charities.Justice Elena Kagan said not all charities objected to making their donors’ names public, suggesting that a blanket rule was not needed. “Most charities disclose their donors,” she said. “In fact, it’s part of their strategy, that the more disclosure there is, the more fund-raising and association there is.”Mr. Shaffer said that anything less than a ruling doing away with the requirement entirely for all charities “will be a Pyrrhic victory.” Requiring thousands of charities to litigate whether their donors could be subject to harassment would be, he said, a burden at odds with First Amendment freedoms.Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the acting United States solicitor general, proposed a middle ground that did not seem to interest the justices. She urged the Supreme Court to return the case to the federal appeals court in California for a fresh look at whether the two groups challenging the requirement had provided sufficient evidence that their own First Amendment rights had been violated. More

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      Kevin McCarthy, Four Months After Jan. 6, Still on Defensive Over Trump

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      But Mr. McCarthy, the House Republican leader who could become speaker after 2022, says he needs to work with Donald Trump, who “goes up and down with his anger.’’BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, was in an uncharacteristically dark place.It was after the Capitol siege of Jan. 6, and he was getting pounded from all sides. He was being accused, accurately, of promoting President Donald J. Trump’s stolen-election lies. But Mr. Trump was still enraged at him for not doing more, and his supporters had just ransacked Mr. McCarthy’s office.“This is the first time I think I’ve ever been depressed in this job,” Mr. McCarthy confided to his friend, Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina. “Patrick, man, I’m down, I’m just really down.”Mr. McHenry told him to gather himself. “You’re dazed,” Mr. McHenry said, recounting the exchange. “You have to try to think clearly.”As the end of the Trump presidency devolved into turmoil and violence, Mr. McCarthy faced a dilemma, one that has bedeviled his party for nearly five years: Should he cut Mr. Trump loose, as many Republicans were urging. Or should he keep trying to make it work with an ousted president who remains the most popular and motivating force inside the G.O.P.?Mr. McCarthy chose the latter, and not for the first time. His extravagant efforts to ingratiate himself with Mr. Trump have earned him a reputation for being an alpha lap-dog inside Mr. Trump’s kennel of acolytes. Nine days after Mr. Trump departed Washington, there was Mr. McCarthy paying a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida estate, in an effort to “keep up a dialogue” with the volatile former president.“He goes up and down with his anger,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Trump in a series of interviews during a recent 48-hour swing through Indiana and Iowa, and home to Bakersfield, Calif., which he has represented in Congress since 2007. “He’s mad at everybody one day. He’s mad at me one day.”Now, nearly four months after Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy continues to defend his support for Mr. Trump’s bogus assertions that the election was stolen from him. Friends say that he knows better and is as exasperated by Mr. Trump’s behavior as other top Republicans, but that he has made the calculation that the former president’s support is essential for his ambitions to become speaker after the 2022 elections, when Republicans have a decent chance to win back the House.Pressed on whether he regretted working to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory, Mr. McCarthy took the position that he did no such thing.“We voted not to certify two states,” he said, referring to Arizona and Pennsylvania, whose slates of electoral votes Mr. McCarthy and fellow Republicans voted to challenge, despite offering no proof of fraud that would have altered the final tallies. But even if the Republicans’ challenge had been successful in those states, Mr. McCarthy argued, the electoral votes would not have been enough to tip the nationwide vote away from Mr. Biden. “And Joe Biden would still be sitting in the White House right now,” he said.So what exactly was he trying to accomplish with his votes against certification on Jan. 6? “That was the only time that we could raise the issue that there was a question in the activities in those states,” Mr. McCarthy said.On Sunday, Mr. McCarthy was further pressed by the “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, who asked whether Mr. Trump had sided with the Jan. 6 rioters when the president told Mr. McCarthy in a phone call that day, according to a claim by another Republican House member, that the mob was “more upset by the election” than Mr. McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy had called Mr. Trump to tell him the mob had to stop.Mr. McCarthy sidestepped, saying Mr. Trump told him that he would “put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did, he put a video out later.”“Quite a lot later,” Mr. Wallace replied. “And it was a pretty weak video.”Mr. McCarthy’s dodge speaks to his role as Mr. Trump’s chief envoy to Republicans in power. At 56, he is perhaps the most consequential member of his party in post-Trump Washington in large part because of his chance of becoming the next speaker of the House. Republicans need to win roughly five more seats to reclaim a majority in 2022, a viable prospect given that congressional districts are set to be redrawn and precedent favors nonpresidential parties in midterm elections. In contrast, Senate Republicans — deadlocked 50 to 50 with Democrats — face a treacherous map, with analysts viewing Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, as less likely to command a majority after 2022.Mr. McCarthy knows the surest way to blow up his speakership plans would be to alienate Mr. Trump, who relishes being both a potential kingmaker to his favored candidates and saboteur of those he is determined to punish.“He could change the whole course of history,” Mr. McCarthy said, referring to the prospect that Mr. Trump could undermine Republican campaigns, or leave the party entirely. “This is the tightest tightrope anyone has to walk.”Mr. McCarthy’s current role has positioned him as perhaps the most consequential Republican in post-Trump Washington.Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times‘Like Your Older Brother’Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump share some essential traits. Both men are more transactional than ideological, possess a healthy belief in their own abilities to charm and tend to be hyper-focused on the zero sum of politics (i.e., winning and losing). As the leader of a minority caucus, Mr. McCarthy has been less concerned with passing signature legislation or advancing any transformational policy initiatives.His main preoccupation has been doing what it takes to win a majority and become speaker. He has worked feverishly to that end by recruiting candidates, formulating campaign strategies and raising huge sums ($27.1 million in the first quarter of 2021, spread over four targeted funding entities), much of which he has distributed to his members, earning himself the vital currency of their devotion.“Kevin has unified the Republican conference more than John Boehner or Paul Ryan ever did,” said Representative Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, referring to Mr. McCarthy’s leadership predecessors. “He’s been to my district four times. My donors know him. They have his cell number. Kevin’s capacity to build and maintain relationships is not normal.”As the leader of a historically fractious caucus, Mr. McCarthy’s most effective unifying tactic has been through common opposition to the “radical socialist agenda” of Democrats, particularly Republicans’ designated time-honored scoundrels like Representative Maxine Waters of California, after she said protesters should “get more confrontational” in the event Derek Chauvin was acquitted in the killing of George Floyd.Mr. McCarthy moved quickly to call a House vote to censure Ms. Waters. The measure promptly failed as Democrats charged hypocrisy over Mr. McCarthy’s unwillingness to condemn worse in his own ranks, among them Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida (possible sex trafficking) and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (support in 2019 for assassinating Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among other incendiary stances on social media).Friends say Mr. McCarthy has little stomach for playing the heavy. “Look, I work with people I don’t get to hire,” Mr. McCarthy said. He shrugs off the presence of “problematic” members as a phenomenon of both sides. “I’m just a simple person,” Mr. McCarthy likes to say, a standard line in his stump speech. “The Senate is like a country club. The House is like a truck stop.” He prefers eating at a truck stop, he said, “a freewheeling microcosm of society” where he would much rather fit in than try to impose order.“Kevin is a little like your older brother,” Mr. McHenry said. “He doesn’t want to be your parent.”Mr. McCarthy knows the surest way to blow up his plans of becoming speaker would be to alienate Mr. Trump.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWho’s in Charge?Mr. McCarthy took a seat at a family restaurant in Davenport, Iowa, during a recent visit to highlight a disputed congressional race left over from 2020. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican, had prevailed by six votes over Rita Hart, a Democrat who was appealing the matter to a House committee. Mr. McCarthy accused Democrats of trying to steal the seat, which invited immediate charges of a yawning double standard given how Mr. McCarthy had supported Mr. Trump’s efforts on a much grander scale.Later that day, Ms. Hart conceded defeat, and the dispute was resolved without riots. “This is a good day,” Mr. McCarthy said. But that morning, Mr. Biden had unveiled his infrastructure bill and had called Mr. McConnell, and not Mr. McCarthy, to brief him ahead of time. Mr. McCarthy volunteered that he had not once spoken to Mr. Biden since Inauguration Day, a slight he maintained did not bother him, although the pique in his voice suggested otherwise.“When he was vice president, we would do stuff together,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He would have me up to eat breakfast at his residence.”Mr. McCarthy flashed a photo of himself from his phone with the vice president at the time, separated by tall glasses of orange juice and plates of freshly cut melon and blueberries. Mr. McCarthy, who likes to attend Hollywood award shows and big-ticket galas, brandished phone photos of himself over two days with other eminences, including Mr. Trump, Pope Francis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kobe Bryant. There was also one of himself in high school with majestically feathered hair.But he is also a small-town guy who keeps up with old boyhood pals and still seems enamored of having been popular at Bakersfield High School, where he played tight end on the football team. He travels home often to his district lined with swaying oil jacks, spread across California’s agricultural interior, two hours north and a world removed from Los Angeles, not to mention Washington 2,700 miles away.The son of a firefighter, Mr. McCarthy has a shorthand bio that’s well-worn: He won $5,000 in a lottery, left community college to open a deli, learned firsthand the havoc government intrusion can inflict on business owners, sold the deli, earned a marketing degree and M.B.A. at California State University, Bakersfield, and was elected to the California Legislature in 2002.The waitress came over, and Mr. McCarthy ordered fried chicken and chunky apple sauce.The meal landed while he was on hold waiting to be interviewed by Sean Hannity, giving Mr. McCarthy the chance to methodically rip apart his fried chicken. He separated the batter and meat from the bone with savage gusto, and shoveled as much as possible into his mouth before the interview began. His fingers grew greasy, as did his phone.The gist of the Hannity interview was consistent with one of Mr. McCarthy’s recurring themes of late: Democrats are acting in a heavy-handed manner antithetical to Mr. Biden’s conciliatory impulses. This therefore proved that Mr. Biden was not really in charge of his own government, a familiar Republican trope since the popular-so-far Mr. Biden took over.Republicans need to win roughly five House seats next year to reclaim a majority.Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times‘That’s My Job’Mr. McCarthy became the House Republican leader after his party lost its majority in 2018 and Mr. Ryan retired. Republicans came shockingly close to winning back the majority in 2020, despite predictions they would lose seats in a coronavirus-ravaged economy and with an unpopular president leading the ticket. Instead, the party netted about a dozen seats, leaving it only five short. Mr. McCarthy’s colleagues began referring to him as “speaker in waiting.”After the House chamber was evacuated on Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy retreated to his Capitol office with a colleague, Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican of Arkansas. When it became evident the rioters were breaking in, Mr. McCarthy’s security detail insisted he leave. But Mr. Westerman was left behind in Mr. McCarthy’s inner work area, he said in a recent interview.For protection, Mr. Westerman said he commandeered a Civil War sword from an office display, barricaded himself in Mr. McCarthy’s private bathroom and waited out the siege while crouched on the toilet.Friends describe the postelection period as traumatic for Mr. McCarthy, who publicly perpetuated the fiction that Mr. Trump had won while privately asking him to stop.“Every day seemed worse than the day before,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and frequent McCarthy sidekick. “He knew the impossible position he was in.”Still, the turmoil never brought Mr. McCarthy to a breaking point with Mr. Trump. “Look, I didn’t want him to leave the party,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Mitch had stopped talking to him a number of months before. People criticize me for having a relationship with the president. That’s my job.”Whenever the former president’s name came up in these interviews, Mr. McCarthy would lower his voice and speak haltingly, wary of not casting Mr. Trump in a way that might upset him. “Is this story going to be all about Trump?” Mr. McCarthy asked, after back-to-back questions on him. He then paused, seemingly bracing for a ceiling fan to drop on his head.Catie Edmondson More

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      Caitlyn Jenner announces plan to run for governor of California

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      Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic athlete and reality television star, has announced she will be challenging California governor Gavin Newsom in the impending gubernatorial recall election.In a post on her website, Jenner, a longtime Republican who had signaled earlier this month that she was considering a run, proclaimed, “I’m in!”The recall effort against Newsom, a Democrat, was spearheaded by Republicans in California who opposed the governor’s Covid-era business shutdowns, as well as his immigration and tax policies. It gained support in the winter while California was in the throes of its most deadly phase of the pandemic. Officials have until the end of April to verify recall petition signatures, and the earliest an election would be held is sometime in November.Still, with recall proponents saying they have collected more than the 1.5m signatures needed to force an election, the prospect of a recall look all but inevitable.Jenner, a transgender activist of Keeping Up With the Kardashians fame, would be the most prominent celebrity to enter the race, which has already attracted a range of both traditional politicians and eccentric figures.The former group includes John Cox, a businessman who lost to Newsom by 24 points during the last gubernatorial election (the largest margin in a California governor’s race since the 1950s), Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and Doug Ose, a former US representative.Porn actor and reality TV star Mary Carey and model Angelyne, who rose to prominence in the 1980s after she was featured in a series of iconic billboards around LA, are also running.All these challengers will face a steep uphill battle. Although Newsom saw his approval ratings dip during the state’s most arduous phase of the pandemic, most California voters still support him. Recent polling from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 56% of likely voters oppose recalling the governor, and 5% are unsure. Only 40% would vote to remove the governor from office.The recall campaign’s links with far-right groups, including Q-Anon, could also sink its chances of succeeding. Although recall proponents say they have broad support and have sought to distance themselves from far-right supporters following the 6 January attack on the US Capitol led by right-wing extremists, their anti-masking and anti-immigrant rhetoric has narrow appeal in California.Jenner had reportedly consulted with several advisers who worked with Donald Trump, who remains overwhelmingly unpopular in California. After initially supporting Trump‘s presidential run, she changed her views over his administration’s attacks on transgender rights. Still, her limited experience and associations with the former president, limit her chances in the state.“Caitlyn Jenner’s run feels like, at best a publicity stunt, at worst a way to raise funds from republican supporters,” said Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at the Hugh L Carey Institute for Government Reform who studies recall elections. “The biggest issue for Newsom is actually a Democratic candidate running.”Democrats in California and Washington DC, however, have made clear – at least for now – that the party will stand behind Newsom.In the heavily left-leaning state, where Democrats control the governor’s office and the legislature, Republicans have increasingly become a minority party. Jenner, in explaining her reasoning for running, said, “For the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people.” She added that she saw herself as a “disruptor” of Democratic hegemony, announcing on her website that she had filed the initial paperwork to run. More

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      Caitlyn Jenner Announces Run for California Governor

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      Ms. Jenner, a Republican former Olympian and transgender activist, said on Friday that she was running to challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat facing an all but certain recall election.Caitlyn Jenner, the Republican former Olympian and prominent transgender activist, announced on Friday that she would challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in this year’s recall election.Ms. Jenner, whose candidacy represents one of the most prominent bids for public office by an openly transgender person in the United States, said she had filed initial paperwork to run.A recall election is all but certain in California, where Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, has come under attack for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans and backers of the recall effort have focused in particular on his leadership of the state’s economy.Officially, it is still uncertain if and when a recall vote will happen, but organizers have said for months that they have exceeded the 1.5 million signatures needed to trigger such an election. It would most likely be held this fall.In many ways, the effort is the work of Republicans struggling to maintain relevance in the overwhelmingly Democratic state. And Ms. Jenner faces a steep uphill battle: A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that just 40 percent of voters in the state supported a recall and more than half approved of Mr. Newsom’s performance.“For the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people,” Ms. Jenner wrote in her announcement, calling herself a “compassionate disrupter.” “This will be a campaign of solutions, providing a roadmap back to prosperity to turn this state around and finally clean up the damage Newsom has done to this state.”Celebrities running for office is nothing new in California, where voters elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the latter in a special recall election in 2003 that ousted Gov. Gray Davis. But Ms. Jenner is a political unknown in the state, where it is notoriously expensive to campaign for statewide office.Despite criticism of Mr. Newsom’s handling of the pandemic and other controversies, a recent poll found that just 40 percent of the state’s voters would support a recall of the governor. No other Democrat has entered the race, and elected Democrats have repeatedly pledged to stick by Mr. Newsom, helping to shore up his support among Latino, Asian and Black voters in particular.The race would come at a time of steep challenges for California. In addition to the pandemic, the state is likely to face another drought for the second time in less than a decade.Ms. Jenner, whose candidacy was earlier reported by Axios, chose to run after meeting with several advisers who also worked for former President Donald J. Trump, which could complicate her chances in California. Democrats have repeatedly painted the recall effort as a plan supported largely by far-right extremists. Ms. Jenner supported Mr. Trump early on when he ran for president, but withdrew her support in 2018 after his administration repeatedly attacked transgender rights. More

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      ‘All you need is the filing fee and a dream’: who are Gavin Newsom’s recall challengers?

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      As the California gubernatorial recall effort heats up, Gavin Newsom is preparing to face off against a motley mix of political challengers – including a reality TV star, a former Facebook executive, a Los Angeles billboard model and a Republican businessman who lost the last gubernatorial race by 24 points.California election officials are expected to verify by the end of April that Newsom’s opponents have collected enough signatures to force a recall later this year – probably sometime in November.But the political opportunity it offers has already drawn out all manner of “celebrities, billionaires and multimillionaires, gadflies”, as well as some serious contenders, said Fernando J Guerra, a political scientist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.The race has so far attracted three traditional Republican candidates: John Cox, a businessman who lost to Newsom by 24 points during the last gubernatorial election, the largest margin in a California governor’s race since the 1950s), Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and Doug Ose, a former US representative.Then there’s everyone else. Caitlyn Jenner, a former Keeping Up with the Kardashians star and Olympic champion, is working with former Trump campaign figures to plot out a potential run. The porn actor and reality TV star Mary Carey, who ran against the Democrat Gray Davis in the 2003 recall, has also thrown her hat in. And Angelyne, the model who rose to prominence in the 1980s after she was featured in a series of billboards around LA, is also running.“All you really need to run is $4,200 for the filing fee and a dream,” said Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at the Hugh L Carey Institute for Government Reform who studies recall elections. The 2003 recall election against Davis attracted 135 such dreamers, including the HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington, the former child actor Gary Coleman and the pornographer Larry Flynt. The actor Arnold Schwarzenegger won that year, in the first successful recall of a US governor.The latest recall campaign, spearheaded by Republicans who opposed the governor’s Covid-era business shutdowns, as well as his immigration and tax policies, gained steam in the winter as California faced its most severe phase of the pandemic. But as the pandemic abates, and the economy shows promising signs of recovery, Newsom remains fairly popular among Californians despite scandals and setbacks. He was elected to office in 2018 with a whopping 62% of the vote and recent polling from the Public Policy Institute of California found that he remains fairly popular. Fifty-six per cent of likely voters oppose recalling the governor, and 5% are unsure – only 40% would vote to remove the governor from office“I am convinced that Newsom is going to beat the recall,” Guerra said, though, he added, a stagnating economy or major political blunder (say, a repeat of Newsom’s infamous dinner party at the Michelin-starred French Laundry at the height of the pandemic) could knock the governor off his sturdy perch.Notably missing from the governor’s cast challengers is a Democrat. So far, the party has formed a united front, with moderates and progressives, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, backing Newsom. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, warned Democrats not to turn against one of their own, dismissing the idea of a Democratic challenger to Newsom as an “unnecessary notion” that doesn’t even rise “to the level of an idea”.That hasn’t squashed speculation that the former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who ran against Newsom in 2018, could join the race. The former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, a big Democratic donor who recently redirected his wealth toward the amplifying petition to gather signatures for the recall, also says he wants to run. And Tom Steyer, the billionaire former hedge fund manager and climate change campaigner who ran in the Democratic presidential primaries, is also reportedly considering a candidacy.A liberal candidate who wouldn’t outshine Newsom could serve as an insurance policy for the state’s Democrats, Guerra said. “A Democratic candidate would not peel off enough votes from Newsom in the recall, but could beat out Republicans if voters choose to remove Newsom could be strategic,” he said. “Because what happens if there’s another one or two scandals that drag Newsom down – without another Democrat in the race, you’re left with Caitlyn Jenner or John Cox as governor.”But Spivak said that based on recall history, Democrats would do well to avoid such a strategy. In the 2003 recall, Davis’s lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante, tried the campaign line “No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante”, and it failed spectacularly. Bustamante trailed Schwarzenegger by 17 points. “And it killed his political career,” Spivak said. The Democrat spectacularly tanked his only other bid for political office since the recall, losing the 2006 election for insurance commissioner to a Republican by 12 points.On the other hand, for Republicans hoping to gain a foothold in deep-blue California, the only chance comes from the chaos and confusion of a crowded, messy election, Spivak said. “Republicans can’t win a straight, regular election – so having 400 candidates, including maybe some Democrats, running against Newsom helps them,” he said.In a recall, voters are asked two questions: first, whether they want to recall Newsom, and then, who should replace him? If at least 50% of voters agree to remove Newsom from office, whichever of is opponents gets the most votes would replace him – even if they’ve collected a tiny fraction of the total ballots cast. More

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      Caitlyn Jenner reportedly considering run for California governor

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterCaitlyn Jenner, the TV star and Olympic champion, is reportedly considering a run for California governor.The Axios reporter Jonathan Swan on Tuesday reported that Jenner is working with GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren to explore running against the California governor, Gavin Newsom, in an impending recall election. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times said on Wednesday that former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is advising Jenner on building her team.The recall campaign against Newsom, a Democrat, is spearheaded by Republicans who opposed the governor’s pandemic-era business shutdowns, as well as his immigration and tax policies.The campaign said in March it had filed the signatures needed to call an election to remove Newsom from office. If election officials are able to validate at least 1.5m signatures by the end of this month, the state will hold a recall election this year. Voters will choose first whether they want to recall Newsom and then who they would like to replace him.The recall campaign gained traction amid the previous coronavirus surge, with support from big business donors and a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists. The Republicans currently running against Newsom include the former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer; the conservative activist Mike Cernovich; and John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018 by 23 points. Strategists say that none of these candidates have an easy path to victory in a state that leans heavily Democratic.Some recall supporters say that a big-name Republican like Jenner would change the dynamics of the race. In the 2003 recall of former California governor Gray Davis, it was the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to run against Davis that helped energize the effort. Schwarzenegger ultimately replaced Davis.Jenner, a former Olympic medalist who starred in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, has been critical of Donald Trump’s views on trans rights, but has ultimately aligned with the Republican party on many major issues. Wren, who worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign fundraising committee and helped organize the rally that preceded the 6 January Capitol attack, connected with Jenner through a GOP nonprofit focused on LGBT issues, according to Axios.Democrats in California and in DC have aligned themselves with Newsom. The progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind Newsom, and Kamala Harris – a longtime friend of the California governor – appeared alongside him Monday during her visit to the state and praised him as “a real champion in California and outside of California”.The governor’s approval rating dropped from an early-pandemic peak, but it remains relatively strong in recent polls. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found 56% of likely voters would oppose a recall. More

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      California’s Governor Was Tested by the Pandemic. Now a Recall Looms.

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      In California, both Republicans and Democrats say the threat of a recall election has shaped Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent responses to the coronavirus pandemic.SACRAMENTO — Things have been looking up in California. Vaccines will soon be available to everyone over 16. Los Angeles schools are about to bring hundreds of thousands of students back to classrooms. Disneyland, dark for a year, will throw open its gates in just a few weeks.At the state capital, however, the coronavirus pandemic still clouds Gov. Gavin Newsom’s horizon. Soon, the secretary of state is expected to announce that a campaign to recall him has officially qualified for a special election.Led by Trump stalwarts, amplified by Republican National Committee money and fueled during the pandemic by Mr. Newsom’s own political missteps, the recall initiative is widely regarded as a long shot. Putting it on the ballot requires roughly 1.5 million signatures from disgruntled voters, a drop in the Democrat-dominated bucket of 40 million residents.But even if Mr. Newsom prevails, the pandemic has both tested and tarnished him politically.The tall, telegenic heir to the “fifth-largest economy in the world,” as his predecessor Jerry Brown routinely boasted, Mr. Newsom has lost some of the benefit of California’s doubt. His approval rating has dropped by more than 10 points since May, when 65 percent of Californians trusted his handling of the pandemic. Critics even within his own party have questioned whether his recent decisions have been motivated by public health or the recall attempt.The campaign against Mr. Newsom has highlighted the differences between the powerhouse California that elected him and the virus-battered California he now governs. Longtime political analysts see hidden weaknesses in his polling: The state may not want to recall him, they say, but his popularity has suffered, and his political fortunes are linked more closely than ever to the ebb and flow of the virus in his state.“When you’re evaluating an executive — be it a mayor, a governor, a president, whatever — there are really only a couple of basic questions,” said Mike Madrid, a former political director of the state Republican Party and a co-founder of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.“Are the lights on? Are the trains running on time? And in this case, how have you managed the global pandemic?”At the moment, Mr. Newsom’s report card is mixed.California has record budget reserves, one of the nation’s lowest rates of new virus cases and a vaccine rollout that, after a rocky start, has started to gain steam. But the state also has lagged behind the nation in school reopenings and has the third-highest unemployment rate.A mobile coronavirus vaccination site in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. Mr. Newsom’s future is largely tied to California’s ability to control the coronavirus.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesEpidemiologists have warned that the virus may return as the state reopens, but right now, cases are at levels not seen since mid-October. More than 30 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine dose and 30 percent have survived an infection and developed some level of natural immunity.[See how experts graded California’s vaccine rollout.]Barring a fresh surge or a runaway variant, the pandemic could soon be in California’s rearview mirror. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that three-quarters of Californians believe that the worst of the crisis is behind them, and 56 percent of likely voters would oppose a recall if an election were held now.“In the face of an unprecedented global health crisis, Governor Newsom has followed the science and moved aggressively to keep California safe,” said Nathan Click, one of the governor’s advisers. “His actions saved countless lives and have earned him the trust of Californians.”Recall attempts are common in California and typically fail. The governor’s defenders say this one would never have met the signature threshold had a judge not granted an extension because of the state’s shutdown, one of many ways the recall and the pandemic are inextricably linked.On Thursday, Mr. Newsom received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Los Angeles in a livestreamed event after his administration expanded eligibility to all Californians age 50 and older. Mr. Newsom, 53, showed not one iota of worry about the recall, never mentioning the subject and, after taking off his suit jacket to receive the shot, flexing his muscles in his dark T-shirt.“It has been an extraordinarily challenging year — so much fear, so much anxiety,” Mr. Newsom told reporters. “But now, growing optimism, not only here in Southern California, but throughout our state.”Yet critics and political allies alike said the threat of the recall had indeed loomed large, and had appeared to shape the governor’s pandemic response.In early March, as Los Angeles was just recovering from a brutal winter surge, Mr. Newsom tried to accelerate the reopening of classrooms with sweeping legislation and critical tweaks in the state’s health rules. Then he delivered his annual State of the State address from an empty Dodger Stadium, as if it were a campaign speech.Mr. Newsom gave his State of the State address inside an empty Dodger Stadium.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockHe cited the millions of vaccines the state had administered and the billions of dollars in pandemic aid that he was directing to small businesses. But his language channeled the California labor groups and progressives on whom the state’s Democrats rely to mobilize voters.“When this pandemic ends — and it will end soon — we’re not going back to normal. Normal was never good enough,” the governor said. “Normal accepts inequity.”Days later, after the recall proponents publicly estimated they would exceed 2 million signatures from voters favoring his ouster, he announced that California would be changing its notoriously complex, color-coded system of health restrictions. When the system was devised, life without the threat of Covid-19 seemed so remote that the state’s least-strict designation was caution-tape yellow. But now, the governor said, he was adding a hopeful new “green tier,” a sudden move his critics tied to the recall effort.“Before the threat of a recall the governor told us there was no green because we could never be normal again,” tweeted Jon Fleischman, a former executive director of the California Republican Party. “It’s funny how his science turned out to be political science.”Similar accusations have arisen from some would-be allies.Dr. Jeffrey V. Smith, the Santa Clara County executive, took issue with the governor’s plan to dedicate 40 percent of first vaccine doses to vulnerable, poorer communities as determined by a state index.Mr. Newsom presented the plan last month as proof of his determination to ensure that rich Californians did not crowd the poor out of access to scarce vaccinations. But the policy change also helped Mr. Newsom politically.A new tweak in the system for determining health restrictions let a county move into a lower tier once a critical mass of vaccinations had been administered in disadvantaged ZIP codes. Many of those targeted ZIP codes were in Los Angeles, where teachers’ unions were refusing to return to classrooms until the county was out of the strictest level of health rules. Parent groups, meanwhile, were demanding in-person instruction.Dr. Smith — whose Bay Area county has plenty of poor people but virtually none of the targeted ZIP codes — said the vaccine targets were part of a “fake equity plan,” based less on fairness than on Mr. Newsom’s desire to open up Los Angeles.“What’s really going on has nothing to do with distribution,” said Dr. Smith, who serves in a nonpartisan position but said he identifies as a Democrat. “It has to do with the governor’s desire to buy himself out of the recall election by reopening Southern California as fast as he can.”It is unclear how much voters will care about Mr. Newsom’s mix of motivations. Californians, who overwhelmingly opposed former President Donald J. Trump in the last election, are unlikely to replace a Democratic governor if their main alternatives are limited to the current challengers, who are Republican supporters of Mr. Trump.Conservative activists in Pasadena gathered some of the roughly 1.5 million signatures needed to trigger the recall election.David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIf a recall is placed on the ballot in a special election that most likely would be held in the fall, voters will be asked two questions: Whether Mr. Newsom should be recalled, and if so, who should finish the 14 months or so remaining in his term. So far, no Democrats have stepped up as an alternative, and party leaders from progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to centrists such as President Biden have sought to maintain that united front.The politicking to come is expected to be expensive, national and corrosive. Recall proponents and their allies say they have raised about $4.1 million, including large contributions from major Republican donors, the state Republican Party and potential candidates such as John Cox, a San Diego businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.The governor’s team has reported about $3 million in contributions, including about $400,000 from the state Democratic Party, $250,000 from a union representing state government engineers, $125,000 each from the agricultural magnates Stewart and Lynda Resnick and more than $500,000 in small-dollar online donations in the 48 hours after the governor started a website called Stop the Republican Recall.Supporters of Mr. Newsom portray the initiative as the work of Republican extremists. The leader, the governor has said, believes that the government should “microchip migrants.”Orrin Heatlie, the retired Northern California sheriff’s sergeant who is the recall’s lead proponent, wrote a 2019 Facebook post that read: “Microchip all illegal immigrants. It works! Just ask Animal control.”Mr. Heatlie acknowledged in an interview that he wrote the post, but he said that it was not meant to be taken literally and that he intended it as a “conversation starter.”He said Mr. Newsom brought the recall on himself by imposing too many restrictions early in the pandemic and dining at an elite wine country restaurant while asking Californians to quarantine last fall.Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicts that Mr. Newsom will survive the recall. But he added that the governor’s numbers indicate that his troubles with voters are not over.Last month, pollsters at Emerson College and Nexstar Media Group asked Californians about the 2022 election. If they could, would they vote again for Mr. Newsom?More than 58 percent of registered voters said they preferred someone new.Shawn Hubler More