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      Democrats Continue to Struggle With Men of Color

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      The big headline is that the California recall failed. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom gets to keep his job. He handily fought off the Republican challenge.But there is a worrisome detail in the data, one that keeps showing up, one that Democrats would do well to deal with: Black and Latino men are not hewing as close to the party line as Black and Latina women.There are, of course, issues with exit polls, and results often change as more votes are counted. But that said, the California exit polls do seem to reflect what polls have shown for some time now.In CNN’s exit poll, nearly half of the Hispanic men surveyed and nearly a quarter of the Black men voted to support the recall. The largest difference between men and women of any racial group was between Black men and Black women.Even if these numbers are later adjusted, the warning must still be registered.For many of these men, saying Republicans are racist or attract racists or abide racists isn’t enough.For one thing, never underestimate the communion among men, regardless of race. Men have privileges in society, and some are drawn to policies that elevate their privileges.For instance, many Black and Hispanic men oppose abortion.Some men liked the bravado of Donald Trump and chafed at the rise of the #MeToo movement. Some simply see trans women as men in dresses and want to carry guns wherever they want.The question for Democrats is how do they lure some of these men back without catering to the patriarchy. From a position of principle, the party can’t really appeal to them; it must seek to change them.Add to the patriarchal issues a sense of disillusionment with the Democratic Party and its inability to make meaningful changes on the issues that many of these men care most about, such as criminal justice reform and workplace competition. Democrats often resort to emotional appeals in election season, telling minorities that they must vote for liberal candidates as a defense, to prevent the worst. But many of these men believe that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.The idea of always playing defense and never offense is, well, offensive.Instead, Democrats have to craft a message of empowerment and change. They have to say to these men that they don’t have to operate from a position of weakness and pleading, holding back the forces that would otherwise overwhelm them.To be honest, a robust, offensive messaging campaign would resonate with all people who tend to vote Democratic — men and women.The truth is that in a two-party system, voters have only two choices, so protest votes are self-defeating, as is sitting out elections or supporting the opposition to scare your favored side into better behavior.In a two-party system, if you don’t want the Trump Republicans to win, you must vote Democratic. You are trapped in that way, and no one likes the feeling of being trapped.But “trapped” is not an inspiring campaign message, particularly to people who spent a lifetime feeling trapped and have tired of it, as these men have.Yelling at them isn’t going to work, neither is shaming them or thinking that you are “educating” them.My fear is that these men will continue to drift away from the Democratic Party, not because the Republican Party is the most welcoming of spaces, but because Democrats cannot or will not do more to appeal to Black and Latino men.To my mind, the Democratic Party must do a few things:Admit that it makes many promises to Black people in election seasons that it not only doesn’t accomplish, but sometimes doesn’t even take up.Acknowledge that many of these men feel that the system itself has failed them, that the status quo has failed them.Give the plight of Black and brown men the same prominence that both parties have given the plight of working-class white men.Black and brown men need to feel that they are being seen as more than victims of a predatory justice system or part of the so-called immigrant crisis. They need to be rendered in full and seen as whole.When they are not, it leaves an opening for Republicans to exploit, and conservatives have done a clever job of doing just that in recent elections.If you are like me, you are thinking: These men should know better. They are voting in ways that invite injury or not voting at all. They shouldn’t be coddled. The world is sick of coddling selfish men.But we, too, are stuck in this two-party system, and as such, we must do whatever it takes to prevent calamity and eek out progress.In that world, when men of color vote against the interests of people of color and out of the male ego, we must gingerly talk them down rather than aggressively chant them down.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Boston Mayoral Election Race Narrows, With Michelle Wu in the Lead

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      The city’s 91-year succession of Irish American and Italian American mayors has ended, with Michelle Wu earning one of two spots in the general election in November.BOSTON — Michelle Wu, an Asian American progressive who has built a campaign around climate change and housing policy, earned one of two spots in Boston’s preliminary mayoral election on Tuesday, setting the stage for change in a city that for nearly 200 years has elected only white men.As a front-runner, Ms. Wu, 36, marks a striking departure for this city, whose politics have long turned on neighborhoods and ethnic rivalries.The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she is not from Boston, and has built an ardent following as a city councilor by proposing sweeping structural changes, like making the city’s public transportation free, restoring a form of rent control, and introducing the country’s first city-level Green New Deal.The vote count moved slowly into Wednesday morning and The Associated Press did not immediately announce who had finished second behind Ms. Wu. But another city councilor, Annissa Essaibi George, announced that she had won the other spot in November’s general election, and her two closest competitors told supporters they had lost.Ms. Essaibi George, 47, has positioned herself as a moderate, winning endorsements from traditional power centers like the former police commissioner and the firefighters’ union.In a debate last week, she promised voters that if elected, “you won’t find me on a soapbox, you’ll find me in the neighborhoods, doing the work.”The Nov. 2 matchup is expected to test the consensus that emerged among many national Democrats after New York’s mayoral primaries: that moderate Black voters and older voters will tug the Democratic Party back toward its center, particularly around the issue of public safety.For weeks, polls showed two leading Black candidates — Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell — in a dead heat with Ms. Essaibi George for second place. But turnout in the nonpartisan preliminary election was low on Tuesday, and they appeared to fall short.The prospect of a general election with no Black candidate came as a bitter disappointment to many in Boston, which had seemed closer than ever before to electing a Black mayor.“Boston is a Northern city,” John Hallett, 62, who had supported Ms. Janey, said in frustration. “They have had Black mayors in Atlanta, in Mississippi, and other places down South. I think this is just ridiculous. Really, I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s going to take.”The winner of the election will take the helm of a swiftly changing city.Once a blue-collar industrial port, Boston has become a hub for biotechnology, education and medicine, attracting a stream of affluent, highly educated newcomers. The cost of housing has skyrocketed, forcing many working families to settle for substandard housing or to commute long distances.Annissa Essaibi George, a city councilor.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesMs. Wu, a Chicago native who moved here to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School, speaks to those new arrivals and their anxieties, acknowledging that her flagship proposals are “pushing the envelope.”“Others have described them, at times, as ‘pie in the sky’ because they are bold, reaching for that brightest version of our future,” she said. “So much of what we celebrate in Boston started as visions that might have seemed ‘pie in the sky’ initially, but were exactly what we needed and deserved. And people fought for them.”Throughout its history, she says, Boston has served as a laboratory for new ideas, like public education, and for movements like abolitionism, civil rights and marriage equality.“This is a city that knows how to fight for what is right,” said Ms. Wu, who credits Elizabeth Warren, her law professor, with helping to launch her in politics.But Boston’s most faithful voters are in predominantly white precincts, where many look askance at many of Ms. Wu’s policies, and at the calls for policing reforms that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Those voters have rallied around Ms. Essaibi George, who grew up in Dorchester, the daughter of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, and is the only candidate to oppose cuts to the police budget and favor increasing the number of officers on Boston streets.At a victory celebration that began shortly before midnight, Ms. Essaibi George, flanked by her teenage triplets, launched into a critique of Ms. Wu and her policy-wonk platform.“We need real change, and that doesn’t come with just ideas or an academic exercise, that comes with hard work,” she said. “I don’t just talk, I work. I do. I dig in and get to it. It’s how my parents raised me. It’s how this city made me.”She went on to poke holes in two of Ms. Wu’s signature platforms, to cheers from the crowd. “Let me be clear,” she said. “The mayor of Boston cannot make the T free. The mayor of Boston cannot mandate rent control. These are issues the state must address.”Ms. Essaibi George’s supporters, who gathered on a Dorchester street corner on the eve of the election, wearing her campaign’s trademark hot pink T-shirts, were mostly white, and named public safety as a top concern. Robert O’Shea, 58, recalled “Dirty Water,” the 1965 pop ode to the polluted Charles River and its “lovers, muggers and thieves.”“Well, when that was written, nobody wanted to be here,” he said. “Look what it is now. I’ve seen this city grow so much, I can’t afford to buy the house I live in.”Mr. O’Shea said he was not hostile to Ms. Wu, or what he called “all this progressive stuff.”“It’s all great, though the socialism aspect of it kind of scares me a little bit,” he said, noting that several of his relatives are Boston police officers. “But people need to be safe. People need to feel safe in their homes before they can save the world.”One reason Boston may prove more receptive to progressive candidates is that it is a very young city, with roughly one-third of its population between the ages of 20 and 37.Its manufacturing jobs have mostly vanished, making way for affluent, better-educated newcomers, “people who may read The Times but don’t necessarily go to church,” said Larry DiCara, 72, a former Boston city councilor. And it was not jolted by a rise in violent crime over the summer, something that probably shifted votes in New York toward Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee.Ms. Wu had no choice but to build her political base around a set of policies because she could not bank on ethnic or neighborhood affinities, said Jonathan Cohn, the chair of the Ward 4 Democratic Committee, which endorsed her.“There is a real way that politics is often done here, of ‘what church, what school, what neighborhood,’ and she is trying to shift it to a policy discussion,” he said.Clockwise from top left: Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell, Kim Janey and Annissa Essaibi George.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesWhen Ms. Wu entered the City Council in 2014, the body had largely concerned itself with constituent services, but over the next few years it became a platform for national-level policy, on climate change and police reform. The policies Ms. Wu zeroed in on, like fare-free transit and the Green New Deal, emerged as her mayoral platform.Some observers question whether Ms. Wu’s policy platform will be enough to carry her through the general election in November.“People just want the city to work for them, they don’t want nice policies,” said Kay Gibbs, 81, who worked as a political aide to Thomas Atkins, the city’s first Black city councilor, and to Representative Barney Frank. Boston’s next mayor, she said, will have her hands full with the basics, taking control of powerful forces within a sprawling city government.“The electorate is smarter than we think they are, and they have certain interests that don’t extend to all these dreamy ideas of free public transport and Green New Deal,” she said. “They are going to choose the person they think is most able.”Boston is growing swiftly, with rapid growth in its Asian and Hispanic populations. It has seen a shrinking percentage of non-Hispanic white residents, who now make up less than 45 percent of the population. And the percentage of Black residents is also dropping, falling to 19 percent of the population from about 22 percent in 2010.Ms. Janey, who was then the City Council president, became acting mayor in March after Martin J. Walsh became the country’s labor secretary, and many assumed she would cruise into the general election. But she was cautious in her new role, sticking largely to script in public appearances, and damaged by criticism from her rival Ms. Campbell, a Princeton-educated lawyer and vigorous campaigner.At a campaign stop on Monday, Ms. Janey said incumbency had not necessarily proved an advantage.“I certainly would say, if anything, it’s a double-edged sword,” she said.Municipal elections, especially preliminary ones, tend to draw a low turnout, whiter and older than the city as a whole. It is only in the last few years that change has begun to ripple through Massachusetts, which has seen a series of upsets for progressive women of color, said Steve Koczela, president of the MassInc Polling Group.“This is the culmination of a lot of flexing of new political muscle,” he said. More

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      What Does the California Recall Mean for the U.S.?

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democrats argued that he was running not on his record or against a particular candidate, but against Trumpism.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Let’s start with the obvious caveat: California is different. That’s true for many, many reasons, but this week all eyes are on its bizarre — some say unconstitutional — recall process, in which a small minority of Californians have forced today’s no-confidence vote on Gov. Gavin Newsom, despite a vast majority’s support for him.The latest polls show that Californians overwhelmingly want him to stay, and are especially wary of his leading opponent, the conservative talk-show host Larry Elder. But this being politics in 2021, let’s also concede that there is always a chance that the polls are disastrously wrong. By tomorrow, could we all be talking about Mr. Elder’s brilliant campaign and bright future?With those two huge caveats in mind, let’s take up the opposite question: What does Mr. Newsom’s likely cruise to victory say about American politics over the coming years?Again, this being 2021, we can’t talk about politics, national or local, without talking about Donald J. Trump and, by extension, Trumpism. The man and the phenomenon (or is it a movement? or an ideology?) played into the race in two ways, both of which we’re going to see repeated in coming races.First, Mr. Newsom and the Democrats seem to have persuasively argued that he was running not on his record or against a particular candidate, but against Trumpism — that the alternative to Mr. Newsom was, as this paper put in a headline, “the abyss.”“We defeated Trump last year, and thank you, but we haven’t defeated Trumpism,” Mr. Newsom has told anyone who would listen.Such scaremongering is a time-honored tactic, but it’s an especially salient and effective one today. Mr. Trump is always in the news, always taking the extreme position, and as long as he lays claim to being the head of the Republican Party, Democrats will try to tie their opponents to him.And it works. Because Trumpism is so vague, opponents can make it anything they want it to be. Incipient fascism? Rampant libertarianism? White supremacy? Check, check and check. It can also mean specific things, like eviscerating climate policy or canceling mask and vaccine mandates. California has a lot of problems, but Californians generally approve of Sacramento’s pro-government, pro-regulatory approach. Rather than be forced to defend their specific policies, the Democrats can simply paint their opponents as Trump manqués bent on destruction.Another caveat: This is California, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by two to one, forcing the Republican Party into a corner, where it has become captive to its base. That means it’s going to behave in ways that the Republican Party of Texas or Florida, for example, might not.“Compare it with, let’s say, the Democratic Party in Mississippi,” said Chris Stirewalt, the former digital politics editor at Fox News. “It’s probably a very weird space.”Will the Democrats’ strategy work in purple states, or even a state like Virginia, where Republicans are more numerous and better organized — and where Terry McAuliffe is already deploying it against his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, in their race for governor?Traditional political analysis would say no. But again, this is 2021. Following their base, many Republicans have largely (but not entirely) abandoned the political middle, where most Americans say they abide. Democrats have spent months painting their opponents as anti-democratic and anti-reality, a message that has played well among independents and moderates, starting with the Senate runoffs in Georgia, and with Mr. Trump ringing in with false claims about election fraud, expertly timed to prove their point.Not every race is going to play out that way. Most Republicans will read the room, so to speak, and adjust their campaigns accordingly. Look at Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego who’s also running to replace Mr. Newsom. Yes, he has the requisite photo of himself standing beside Mr. Trump. But his message has been about pragmatic solutions to state problems, exactly the sort of campaign you’d expect from someone trying to put space between himself and his national party.Then again, Mr. Faulconer is running a distant second behind Mr. Elder and barely registers in the national conversation. One reason is the uniqueness of the race. It’s a battle royal, not a primary; the candidates had little time to prepare; and as a result, name recognition, which Mr. Elder has and Mr. Faulconer doesn’t, is critical.But another is the new dynamics of right-wing politics — and the second way in which the recall illustrates the lasting impact of Mr. Trump and Trumpism.Mr. Newsom has been running with his “me vs. the abyss” strategy since the recall began. But it didn’t stick at first, because the recall was focused on Mr. Newsom and his performance during the pandemic — including an embarrassing maskless dinner at the French Laundry, one of California’s most exclusive restaurants, during the state’s shutdown.“In a vacuum, there was a lot of discontentment with Newsom and ambivalence with him among Democrats,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant in California.That started to change once “the abyss” got a name.Mr. Elder isn’t the Trumpiest candidate imaginable, but he’s close. A novice campaigner with a background in conservative talk radio, Mr. Elder has a treasure chest full of embarrassing comments in his past — about women, about Black people — and a penchant for making more of them on the stump.“Larry Elder has been the gift that keeps on giving,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant in California.Again, Mr. Elder has been effective because this race is so much more about celebrity than policy. But he’s also effective because he, more than anyone else, is attuned to the Trumpist base, and is willing to tack accordingly.After he drew fire from the right for telling the editorial board of The Sacramento Bee that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, he reversed himself. He has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the recall race is rife with fraud. He is crushing it among the “guys with an Uncle Sam costume in their closet” demographic, but not much else.Arguably, Mr. Elder isn’t a serious politician; he’s running not to win, but to raise his media profile. But that very fact says something about today’s Republican Party. Many of its highest-profile figures blur the line between politician and celebrity, and act accordingly, even if their success as the latter undermines what we expect out of the former. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn — and, yes, Larry Elder — are only nominally politicians. In substance, they’re entertainers.True, they’re entertainers who say scary things about guns, political violence, the pandemic and anyone to their political left. And true, some of them do win elections, usually in deep-red districts. And true, many people in the Republican Party are much smarter, or at least more thoughtful about elected office, than they are.Still, Mr. Elder and Co. highlight a lasting, possibly permanent dynamic on the right: the rejection of politics as anything other than smash-mouth spectacle, in which the most outrageous and insincere figures draw the biggest crowds — and force their colleagues to play constant defense against their own party.That’s not an insurmountable challenge. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida seems, at least for now, to have figured out a way past it. But many won’t — and many Republicans won’t even try. Remember when the party could dismiss as side shows the occasional extremist figures like Todd Akin, who made comments about “legitimate rape,” and Christine “I’m Not a Witch” O’Donnell? In 2021, that’s become much, much harder to do.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      What Time Do Polls Open and Close in California? Full Guide to Recall Election

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      Early returns suggest that California’s huge Democratic base is rallying for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was elected in 2018 in a landslide. There are more than 40 competitors on the ballot.Follow our live updates on the California Recall Election.California voters will decide whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, concluding an idiosyncratic election that has been held in the middle of a pandemic and closely watched as one of the first big indicators of the country’s political direction since President Biden took office.Democrats feel increasingly confident, predicting that Mr. Newsom will prevail and avert what would be a disaster for the party in California, the nation’s most-populous state. If Mr. Newsom is recalled, his likely replacement would be Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host who has made a career bashing liberal causes.But the fact that the Democratic governor of a state Mr. Biden won by nearly 30 percentage points is being forced to fight to hold on to his post has highlighted the vulnerabilities of leaders who seemed well positioned before the coronavirus pandemic.Democrats are trying to energize voters without former President Donald J. Trump on the ballot, and a loss — or even a narrow victory — would raise questions about the political clout of Mr. Biden, who campaigned with Mr. Newsom on Monday night.The leading Republicans vying to replace Mr. Newsom have embraced Mr. Trump and his baseless claims of a stolen election, an early signal of the party’s unwillingness or inability to distance itself from the former president.Even if the peculiar nature of California’s recall elections does not offer a perfect barometer of the national mood, much is at stake, including the leadership of the world’s fifth-largest economy. Political insiders in both parties note that Mr. Newsom’s fate could have far-reaching national consequences, given the governor’s power to appoint a new senator should a vacancy arise.Gov. Gavin Newsom at a “Vote No” campaign rally in Sun Valley, Calif., on Sunday.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesVoters are being asked two questions: Should Mr. Newsom be recalled? And if that happens, who should replace him? Forty-six candidates, about half of them Republican, are on the ballot, along with seven certified write-in candidates.The winner will serve out the remainder of Mr. Newsom’s term, which ends in January 2023. Regardless of the outcome, there will be another election in a little over a year.When will the polls close? Polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific time. Depending on the number of early ballots and the amount of in-person voting on Tuesday, the math could be clear within a few hours of when the polls close, election experts say. But if the race is tighter than expected, weeks could pass while the counting drags on.Follow our live updates and here’s what we’re watching as the results are released.Will the governor survive the recall?Early returns suggest that California’s huge Democratic base is rallying for Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018 in a landslide. The governor’s campaign has framed the recall as a power grab by Trump Republicans.If Mr. Newsom is recalled, it will have been because a critical mass of independent voters and Democrats voted against him, which in California would suggest a significant — and improbable — shift to the right.The more likely question is whether the governor wins by a wide or a narrow margin. For a time, polls seemed to indicate that likely voters were unenthusiastic about Mr. Newsom, which triggered a torrent of support from major donors and appearances by national Democratic figures, including Mr. Biden.A decisive win by Mr. Newsom, as some recent polls predict, would strengthen him heading into a campaign for a second term in 2022 and perhaps even position him for national office. But if Mr. Newsom prevails by only a couple of percentage points, he could face a primary challenge next year.How many Republicans will cast ballots?Republicans represent only a quarter of California’s registered voters. Since the 1990s, when the party’s anti-immigrant stances alienated Latinos, their numbers have been in decline. Proponents have presented the recall as a way to check the power of Democrats, who control all statewide offices and the Legislature. Republicans also say the battle has animated their party’s base.But Republican support and money for the recall has failed to approach Mr. Newsom’s large operation and war chest. And Mr. Elder’s candidacy appears to be further branding the G.O.P. as far-right by California standards. Support for moderates like Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, is in the single digits, polls indicate.Supporters of Larry Elder gather during a campaign stop at Monterey Park City Hall on Monday. Alex Welsh for The New York TimesCritics of the G.O.P. under Mr. Trump say a failure to remove Mr. Newsom could further diminish Republican influence in California and accentuate the nation’s polarization.How will Latinos vote?Latinos are the largest ethnic group in California, making up roughly 30 percent of registered voters — a largely Democratic constituency that has shaped the state’s governance for decades.But to the consternation of Mr. Newsom’s party and the great interest of the recall backers, Latinos have been slow to weigh in on his ouster, thanks to a combination of distraction — many voters are more focused on navigating the pandemic — and ambivalence, both about Mr. Newsom specifically and the Democratic Party as a whole.Critics have warned that California Democrats have unwisely assumed that the Latino electorate would be animated by memories of Republican anti-immigrant policies, rather than trying to woo Latinos with their vision for the future.That has stirred speculation over whether the fast-growing Latino vote, in California and elsewhere, may be up for grabs by candidates willing to put in the work to engage those voters. After Republicans peeled away significant amounts of Latino support across the country during the 2020 election, a poor showing by Latino voters in the recall could spark a new round of Democratic soul-searching.How influential will mail-in ballots be?Every registered, active voter in California was sent a ballot in an extension of pandemic voting rules. Initiated in 2020 to keep voters and poll workers safe, the system helped boost turnout to more than 70 percent in the presidential election. This month, lawmakers voted to make the system permanent.California election officials say voting ran smoothly in 2020. But Republicans have contended that mailed-in ballots invite cheating, echoing Mr. Trump’s baseless claim that Democrats had used them to steal the presidential election.Last week, in an appearance on Newsmax, the former president claimed without evidence that the recall election was “probably rigged.”Conservative groups seeking evidence of voter fraud have been asking Californians to alert them to recall ballots that arrive in the mail addressed to deceased people or to voters not residing at their address.The warnings about voting by mail appear to have had an effect: Republicans have proven themselves reluctant to embrace the practice — a trend that worries some in the party as more states adopt mail-in balloting. Still, the night before the election, almost 40 percent of all registered voters had already cast their ballots, a hefty share that suggests the ease of voting early and by mail will enhance turnout in what is an unusually timed special election.Voters turned in ballots outside the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland on Monday.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesThat bodes well for Mr. Newsom, who is relying on the state’s enormous base of Democratic voters: The greater the overall turnout, his campaign says, the better his chances.Still, analysts are watching to see whether significant numbers of Republican voters vote in person on Tuesday, and whether younger and Latino voters will join them.What will the vote say about pandemic policies?Had Covid-19 not set the stage, Mr. Newsom arguably would not be fighting for his job now. But lately, he has progress to report. Cases have declined this month in California, where wearing face masks indoors has become a fact of life in many places, and some 80 percent of eligible people have gotten at least one vaccine dose.In recent weeks, Mr. Newsom has trumpeted California’s approach, noting that mask and vaccination requirements have lowered new cases to half of the rates reported in Republican-run states.Californians have said no issue matters more to them than conquering the coronavirus. Broad support for Mr. Newsom, beyond Democratic voters, could signal to policymakers elsewhere — including in some of the dozens of other states with governors’ races next year — that strong health policies can be good politics.Other Democratic candidates on the ballot this fall have also leaned into policies like mask and vaccine mandates while raising alarms that their Republican opponents would undo those measures. Mr. Biden has followed suit, offering stricter policies around mandates and tougher talk aimed at Republican governors.How will Trump affect the race?For four years, Democrats enjoyed enormous gains thanks to Mr. Trump. The former president energized party activists, helped their candidates raise mountains of campaign cash and drove their voters to the polls in record numbers.Mr. Newsom has tried to sustain that source of inspiration, offering frequent warnings about the continuation of “Trumpism” in American political life. His recall election offers the first major test of whether the specter of the former president still has the power to mobilize liberal voters while keeping moderates voting Democratic.On the Republican side, the leading candidates have embraced Mr. Trump’s political playbook, offering baseless allegations of election fraud and “rigged” votes. Mr. Elder has refused to say if he will accept the results of the election.Not all Republicans agree with this playbook. Some worry it could cause some Republicans to stay home because they believe their votes will not count, and low turnout could lend credence to that argument. More

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      Revocatoria en California: estas son las claves

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      Los primeros informes sugieren que la gran base demócrata de California apoya al gobernador Newsom, que arrasó en 2018, cuando fue electo. En la boleta hay más de 40 contendientes para sustituirlo.Los votantes de California decidirán el martes si destituyen al gobernador Gavin Newsom, lo que pone fin a una elección peculiar que ha transcurrido en medio de una pandemia y ha sido observada con atención como uno de los primeros grandes indicadores de la dirección política que tomará el país después de que el presidente Joe Biden asumió el mando.Los demócratas se sienten cada vez más confiados y anticipan que Newsom permanecerá en el cargo y evitarán lo que sería un desastre para el partido en California, el estado más poblado del país. Si Newsom es revocado, su reemplazo más probable sería Larry Elder, un presentador de la radio conservadora que ha hecho una carrera atacando las causas liberales.Pero el hecho de que el gobernador demócrata de un estado que Biden ganó por casi 30 puntos porcentuales se vea obligado a luchar para conservar su puesto ha puesto de manifiesto las vulnerabilidades de los líderes que parecían bien posicionados antes de la pandemia de coronavirus.Los demócratas intentan motivar a los votantes sin la presencia del expresidente Donald Trump en la papeleta y una derrota –e incluso una victoria muy ajustada– crearía dudas sobre la influencia política de Biden, que hizo campaña a favor de Newsom la noche del lunes.Los principales republicanos que compiten por reemplazar a Newsom se han alineado con Trump y sus afirmaciones infundadas de que la elección de 2020 estuvo amañada, una señal temprana de la falta de voluntad o incapacidad del partido para distanciarse del expresidente.Incluso si la naturaleza peculiar de las elecciones revocatorias de California no ofrece un barómetro perfecto del estado de ánimo nacional, hay mucho en juego, incluido el liderazgo de la quinta economía más grande del mundo. Los expertos políticos de ambos partidos señalan que el destino de Newsom podría tener consecuencias nacionales de gran alcance, dado el poder del gobernador para nombrar un nuevo senador en caso de que surja una vacante.El gobernador Gavin Newsom en un mitin de la campaña “Vota No” en Sun Valley, California, el domingoAlex Welsh para The New York TimesA los votantes se les ha pedido responder dos preguntas: ¿Newsom debe ser revocado? Y, si eso sucede, ¿quién debe reemplazarlo? En la boleta aparecen 46 candidatos, alrededor de la mitad de ellos son republicanos y también participan siete candidatos certificados que pueden añadirse a mano.El ganador gobernará por el resto del mandato de Newsom, que concluye en enero de 2023. Sin importar el resultado, habrá otra elección en poco más de un año.Las urnas cerrarán a las 8 p.m. hora del Pacífico. Sigue nuestra página de resultados y cobertura de la elección y sus implicaciones en nytimes.com.Esto es lo que estaremos monitoreando mientras llegan los resultados:¿El gobernador podrá sobrevivir a la revocatoria?Los primeros resultados sugieren que la gran base demócrata de California apoya a Newsom, quien fue electo en 2018 con una gran ventaja. La campaña del gobernador ha presentado la campaña revocatoria como un intento de los republicanos de Trump por hacerse con el poder.Si Newsom es revocado, será porque una gran cantidad de electores independientes y demócratas votaron en su contra, lo cual en California sería señal de un giro significativo e improbable a la derecha.La duda es si el gobernador gana con margen amplio o estrecho. Durante un tiempo, las encuestas parecían indicar que los probables votantes no se mostraban muy entusiasmados respecto a Newsom, lo que causó un torrente de apoyo por parte de grandes donantes así como la aparición de personajes demócratas de importancia nacional, entre ellos Biden.Una victoria decisiva de Newsom, como predicen algunas encuestas recientes, lo fortalecería de cara a una campaña para un segundo mandato en 2022 y quizás incluso lo posicionaría para ocupar un cargo a nivel nacional. Pero si Newsom se queda en la gobernatura por solo un par de puntos porcentuales, podría enfrentar un desafío primario el próximo año.¿Cuántos republicanos van a votar?Los republicanos representan solo una cuarta parte de los votantes registrados de California. Desde la década de 1990, cuando las posturas antiinmigrantes del partido alejaron a los latinos, su número ha disminuido. Los proponentes de la revocatoria la han presentado como una forma de fiscalizar el poder de los demócratas, que controlan todas las oficinas estatales y la Legislatura. Los republicanos también dicen que la batalla ha animado la base de su partido.Pero el apoyo republicano y el dinero para la revocatoria no se acercan al gran fondo de financiación y a la operación con que cuenta Newsom. Y la candidatura de Elder parece que ha presentado al Partido Republicano como de extrema derecha, para estándares de California. El apoyo para los moderados como Kevin Faulconer, exalcalde de San Diego, se registra en cifras inferiores al 10 por ciento, según los sondeos.Partidarios de Larry Elder se reúnen durante una parada de campaña en el Ayuntamiento de Monterey Park el lunesAlex Welsh para The New York TimesLos críticos del Partido Republicano durante el mandato de Trump dicen que si no logran revocar a Newsom esto podría disminuir aún más la influencia republicana en California y acentuar la polarización del país.¿Cómo votarán los latinos?Los latinos son el grupo étnico más numeroso de California, comprenden alrededor del 30 por ciento de los votantes registrados y son un gran grupo demócrata que ha dado forma a la gobernanza del estado durante décadas.No obstante, y para consternación del partido de Newsom y gran interés de los partidarios de la revocatoria, los latinos no han acudido rápidamente a participar, en parte debido a la distracción —muchos votantes están más ocupados sorteando la pandemia— y a la ambivalencia, tanto respecto a Newsom en particular como al Partido Demócrata en general.Los críticos han advertido que los demócratas de California han asumido, equivocadamente, que el electorado latino se sentiría motivado por el recuerdo de las políticas antiinmigrantes republicanas, en lugar de apostar por atraer a los latinos con una visión para el futuro.Esto ha avivado la especulación sobre la posibilidad de que en California y el resto del país el voto latino, de rápido crecimiento, esté disponible para los candidatos dispuestos a esforzarse por conectar con estos electores. Luego de que los republicanos se llevaron una parte significativa del apoyo latino en todo el país durante la elección de 2020, la ausencia de los latinos en las urnas podría generar un nuevo episodio de introspección demócrata.¿Cuán influyentes serán las boletas de votos por correo?A cada votante registrado y activo en California se le envió una boleta como parte de una extensión de las reglas de votación pandémica. El sistema, iniciado en 2020 para mantener seguros a los votantes y los trabajadores electorales, ayudó a aumentar la participación a más del 70 por ciento en las elecciones presidenciales. Este mes, los legisladores votaron para que el sistema sea permanente.Los funcionarios electorales de California dijeron que la votación transcurrió sin problemas en 2020. Pero los republicanos han dicho que las papeletas enviadas por correo invitan a la trampa, lo cual es similar al reclamo, sin fundamento, que hizo Trump al decir que los demócratas se habían valido de estas boletas para robar la elección presidencial.La semana pasada, en una participación en Newsmax, el expresidente aseguró, sin proveer evidencia, que la elección revocatoria estaba “probablemente amañada”.Los grupos conservadores que buscan evidencias de fraude electoral han estado pidiendo a los californianos que reporten si reciben por correo papeletas para personas fallecidas o votantes que no residen en su dirección.Las advertencias sobre el voto por correo parecen haber surtido efecto: los republicanos se muestran reacios a aceptar la práctica, una tendencia que preocupa a algunos en el partido dado que más estados están adoptando el sufragio enviado por correo. Aun así, la noche antes de la elección, casi 40 por ciento de todos los votantes registrados habían emitido su voto, una proporción considerable que sugiere que la comodidad de votar anticipadamente y por correo tendrá un efecto positivo en la participación durante una elección en una temporada inusual.Los votantes entregaron las boletas a las puertas del juzgado del condado de Alameda, en Oakland, el lunes.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesEso es un buen augurio para Newsom, que depende de la enorme base de votantes demócratas del estado: cuanto mayor sea la participación general, dice su campaña, mejores serán sus posibilidades.Sin embargo, los analistas están atentos ante la posibilidad de que haya grandes cantidades de votantes republicanos que acudan a votar en persona el martes y se preguntan si los votantes latinos los acompañarán.¿Qué relación tiene el voto con la pandemia?De no ser por el panorama creado por la COVID-19, es probable que Newsom no estaría pelando ahora por mantener su cargo. Pero últimamente ha hecho algunos progresos. Los casos han bajado este mes en California, el uso de mascarillas en interiores es una realidad en muchas zonas del estado y alrededor del 80 por ciento de las personas elegibles se han vacunado con al menos una dosis.En las últimas semanas, Newsom ha alardeado del enfoque de California, señalando que los requisitos de uso de cubrebocas y vacunación han reducido los nuevos casos a la mitad de las tasas reportadas en los estados gobernados por republicanos.Los californianos indican que no hay tema que les importe más que controlar al coronavirus. El amplio apoyo a favor de Newsom, más allá de los votantes demócratas, podría indicarle a otros funcionarios —incluso en otros estados, que tienen elecciones a la gubernatura el año entrante— que las políticas de salud firmes pueden tener un buen impacto político.Otros candidatos demócratas en la boleta este otoño también han apoyado medidas como el uso de mascarilla obligatorio y los requisitos de vacunación al tiempo que llaman la atención sobre la posibilidad de que sus oponentes republicanos pudieran dar marcha atrás a esas medidas. Biden también ha presentado políticas más estrictas y un discurso más duro dirigido hacia los gobernadores republicanos.¿Qué papel tiene Trump en la contienda?Durante cuatro años, los demócratas disfrutaron de enormes ganancias gracias a Trump. El expresidente motivó a los activistas del partido a trabajar para contrarrestarlo, ayudó a sus candidatos a recaudar montañas de dinero en efectivo para la campaña y llevó a sus votantes a las urnas en cifras récord.Newsom ha intentado sostener esa fuente de inspiración y a menudo advierte que el “trumpismo” persiste en la vida política estadounidense. Su elección revocatoria es la primera gran prueba para saber si el espectro del expresidente sigue teniendo poder para movilizar a los votantes liberales al tiempo que anima a los moderados a seguir votando por demócratas.Del lado republicano, los principales candidatos se han entregado al manual de estrategia política de Trump, al hacer afirmaciones, infundadas, de fraude de elección y votos “amañados”. Elder se ha rehusado a indicar si piensa aceptar los resultados de la elección.No todos los republicanos están de acuerdo con esta estrategia. A algunos les preocupa que pueda ocasionar que algunos republicanos se queden en casa porque creen que sus votos no serán respetados, y la baja participación podría dar crédito a ese argumento.Shawn Hubler es corresponsal en California con sede en Sacramento. Antes de unirse al Times en 2020, pasó casi dos décadas cubriendo el estado para Los Angeles Times como reportera itinerante, columnista y escritora de revista. Compartió tres premios Pulitzer con el equipo Metro del periódico. @ShawnHublerLisa Lerer es una corresponsal de política nacional que cubre campañas electorales, votaciones y poder político. @llerer More

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      How Will Gavin Newsom Survive the California Recall?

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      LOS ANGELES — In the waning days of the campaign to save his job, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California assessed the stakes as nothing short of saving democracy. The possibility of being recalled from office had woken him to the fragile state of the political system, which he compared to … a Fabergé egg.“This is like a Fabergé egg, so to speak, in terms of democracy,” he said. “It’s not a football. You can’t throw it around. It’s delicate. Democracy is delicate. I didn’t realize how delicate it was, and now I’m starting to appreciate how delicate it is and how important this race is, not just for me.”That belated realization has animated the final weeks of this odd campaign, and when the votes are counted after the polls close on Tuesday, they appear very likely to break in the governor’s favor. Yet the election seems destined to be neither a morality play about democracy nor an endorsement of Mr. Newsom and his record. It is more prosaic than that: a lopsided battle between a reasonably popular Democratic incumbent who often seems more self-absorbed than self-aware and a conservative radio talk show host who is arguably to the right of Donald Trump, in a state Mr. Trump lost by 29 percentage points.What the recall does tell us is that California — one of the bluest states in the country — is not so different from other places in being subject to the gravitational tug of partisan forces. Even if Mr. Newsom prevails by a wide margin, the recall has underscored Californians’ continuing ambivalence about his leadership. A victory will be less a vote of confidence than a resounding rejection of the right-wing Republican agenda, a message Democrats hope will resonate beyond California.This should not even be close — and perhaps, despite earlier alarmist polling that suggested a tight race, it never was. On the up-or-down question of whether to recall Mr. Newsom, support for his removal has been consistently about 40 percent, slightly more than the share of the vote that Mr. Trump received in 2020. Mr. Newsom, elected by a large margin in 2018, has just presided over a staggering $76 billion budget surplus that enabled the state to spend generously on myriad programs and people — from elaborate vaccine lotteries to $600 stimulus checks.California Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two to one, and no Republican has won statewide in 15 years. To defeat the recall, Mr. Newsom needs only to make sure enough Democrats vote. Polls and the large turnout of Democrats in early voting suggest he will do that.The political calculus has been complicated by several factors: the topsy-turvy nature of the Covid pandemic and its hardships, without which the recall would not have made the ballot; the extreme political polarization that has gripped the country; and California’s recall law, which makes it possible for a replacement to win with minimal support should the recall pass. But Democrats’ fears that lackluster turnout could create a doomsday scenario have also reflected lukewarm enthusiasm about Mr. Newsom and underlying dissatisfaction with his leadership on severe challenges like lack of affordable housing and devastating wildfires.Some of the dissonance is personal. He has long moved in an elite, moneyed world of Michelin-starred restaurants and Fabergé collectors. He empathized about sharing the parental pain of Zoom school while his kids attended private schools that were already offering in-person instruction. On the day he took office, he moved with fanfare into the state-owned Governor’s Mansion in downtown Sacramento — without disclosing he had already bought a $3.7 million suburban estate that would be the family home.Some of the tepid support is professional. His extensive use of executive orders and powers contributed to friction and distrust with some Democratic legislative leaders. He has a reputation dating back to his tenure as mayor of San Francisco of being enamored of bright, shiny objects, making headline-grabbing announcements that lack follow-through. Progressives are dissatisfied with his action on issues like fracking and single-payer health care; moderates view him as too liberal. In some sense, he lacks a committed base.But the specter of a Trump Republican governor has united Democrats. Mr. Newsom has capitalized on his ability to accept donations of unlimited amounts — another quirk of the recall law — amassing more than $70 million to wage a scare campaign against the talk-show host Larry Elder, the front-runner to become governor if the recall passes. Mr. Elder’s extreme positions on Covid-19 (he wants to repeal vaccine and mask mandates), climate change (he’s “not sure” state wildfires are due to climate change), abortion (he is “pro-life, 100 percent”) and the minimum wage (“the ideal minimum wage is $0.00”) have enabled Mr. Newsom to set the contest in a national frame, warning that California would become Texas and Florida rolled into one. It’s not clear whether the tens of millions of dollars spent on the Vote No campaign has won Mr. Newsom any converts. But that isn’t the goal. The fear is meant to galvanize a large Democratic turnout.Mr. Newsom largely has not campaigned on his record, with the exception of his management of the pandemic, which has earned him strong approval ratings at a time of growing support for mandates on vaccinations and masks.At the same time, fewer than half of those surveyed recently said California was headed in the right direction, and about half thought the state was in a recession. When rated on pressing problems like housing, homelessness and economic issues — which have temporarily taken a back seat to Covid-19 concerns — Mr. Newsom has earned relatively low marks.In recent weeks, Mr. Newsom stayed on message, warning the recall is a matter of life and death. He made little mention of accomplishments beyond boasting in some interviews about ambitious programs that have for the most part not yet gone into effect (like a promise of universal prekindergarten for 4-year-olds and an experiment in providing health care to people living on the street).He would have liked to campaign on his record, Mr. Newsom recently told the Los Angeles Times editorial board. But that would have to wait until his presumed re-election campaign next year.Republicans have probably squandered their best opportunity to regain power. With no obvious strong contenders on the horizon, it seems likely that 2022 will bring a sequel to what is looking like the anticlimactic recall of 2021.Miriam Pawel (@miriampawel) is the author of “The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Covid Isn’t Finished Messing With Politics

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I’m trying to keep an open mind — OK, semi-open — about what to think of Joe Biden’s Covid vaccination mandates. I have no problem with the president requiring federal employees to get the shot. I have no problem with businesses large or small requiring the same. Their houses, their rules.But the civil libertarian in me doesn’t love the idea of this or any president using administrative powers to force vaccines on the people who refuse to get them. Your thoughts?Gail Collins: Well, Bret, if Biden was rounding up the non-vaxxers, having them tied down and inoculated by force — the way many Republicans seem to be drawing the picture — I’d certainly have reservations. But in effect he’s saying that they shouldn’t be allowed in certain places where infection is relatively easy to spread, like workplaces or public buildings.This is a serious, serious health crisis and I don’t think I’d want the president to content himself with giving pep talks.And don’t I remember a previous conversation in which you suggested the non-vaccinated didn’t deserve to be allowed in hospitals if they got sick?Bret: Not exactly, but close. The most elegant policy riposte to the anti-vaxxers — and I mean the willful ones, not the people who simply haven’t had access to the shot or have a compelling medical excuse — is to refuse to allow Medicare or Medicaid to pay their medical bills in the event they become seriously ill. Private health insurers might also follow suit. I accept that people don’t want the government or their employer telling them what to do with their bodies. But these same people shouldn’t expect someone else to bail them out of their terrible health decisions.I have another reservation about what Biden’s doing. Right now, the vast majority of Covid-related hospitalizations are happening among the unvaccinated, which is further proof the shots work. I understand that puts doctors and nurses under a lot of strain, though Covid hospitalizations seem to be declining and the surgeries that are being put off are mainly elective. Otherwise, I don’t see the latest Covid spike as the same kind of issue it was a year or so ago. It’s gone from being a public-health crisis to a nincompoop-health crisis.Gail: Imagining that as a new political slogan …Bret: Is “nincompoop” too strong? How about “total geniuses if they do say so themselves,” instead? Anyway, as anti-vaxxers are mostly putting themselves at serious risk of getting seriously ill, I don’t see the need for a presidential directive, including the renewed mask mandates, which only diminish the incentive to get vaccinated. No doubt I’m missing a few things …Gail: As someone who hates hates hates wearing a mask, I love the idea of getting rid of them. And there are a lot of public places now where I see signs basically saying: If you’re vaccinated, mask wearing is up to you.But in my neighborhood, where most of the people I see on the streets are long since vaccinated, a lot of folks wear masks even when they’re just walking around. It’s more convenient if you’re popping in and out of stores or mass transit, but I like to think they also want to remind the world that we’re still fighting back a pandemic, which is easier if everybody works together.Bret: There are people, particularly the immunocompromised, who have a solid medical or emotional need to take great precautions, including masks, and I totally respect them. The busybodies and virtue-signalers, not so much.Gail: On another presidential matter, I noticed your last column was somewhat, um … negative on the Biden presidency. You really think it’s been that bad?Bret: In hindsight, the headline, “Another Failed Presidency at Hand,” probably took the argument a step farther than the column itself. It’s too early to say that the Biden presidency has failed. But people who wish the president success — and that includes me — need to grasp the extent to which he’s in deep political trouble. It isn’t just the Afghan debacle, or worrisome inflation, or his predictions about the end of the pandemic when the virus had other ideas. I think he has misread his political mandate, which was to be a moderate, unifying leader in the mold of George Bush Sr., not a transformational one in the mold of Lyndon Johnson. And he’s trying to do this on the strength of Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote in the Senate. I think it’s a recipe for more social division and political failure.Gail: As reviews go, that’s certainly a downer.Bret: None of this is to commend the not-so-loyal opposition party. But they’re the ones who stand to gain most from a weak Biden presidency.Gail: Looking at it from my end, we have a president who’s got to make the country feel it’s not trapped in an unhealthy, unhappy, overall-depressed state forever. I’m buying into big change, which requires more than a gentle hand at the wheel. But back to your Biden critique. You said you voted for him last time but now he has revealed himself to be “headstrong,” “shaky” and “inept.” What if Donald Trump runs against him?Bret: One of the reasons I’m so dismayed by Biden’s performance is that it’s going to tempt Trump to run again. In which case, I’ll vote for whoever is most likely to beat Trump. Hell, I’d probably even vote for Bernie. I’d rather have a president who’s a danger to the economy and national security than one who’s a danger to democracy and national sanity.Gail: I do like imagining you walking around town with a Bernie button.Bret: Let’s not take this too far! Hopefully it will work out differently. Bill Clinton managed to straighten out his presidency after a terrible start that included the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia and the failure of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. But that means tacking back toward the center. If I were Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, I’d be quietly pushing Nancy Pelosi to pass a “clean” $1 trillion infrastructure bill that gives the president the big bipartisan win that he really needs now.Gail: And has all the stuff that you like.Bret: As for his $3.5 trillion social-spending behemoth, he might consider breaking up the bill into separate items of legislation to bring the headline price tag down. If this stuff is as popular as progressives claim, they should be able to score some legislative victories piece by piece.Gail: Sounds reasonable outside the reality of our modern-day Congress, in which the idea of passing more than one bill on anything seems way, way more difficult than firing a shuttle into space.Bret: In the meantime, we’ve got a recall election coming up in California, for which polling shows Governor Newsom will likely survive. I’m not Newsom’s biggest fan, but the whole idea of recall elections seems … unsound.Gail: Yeah, California makes it relatively easy to gather enough signatures for a recall vote, and this is a good example of why that’s bad. Newsom has been one of the strongest governors when it comes to pandemic-fighting, and while that’s great, the restrictions have been around for so long it’s left a lot of people feeling really cranky.Bret: I’m making my quizzical face. Go on.Gail: Then we had one of the worst political errors in recent American political history, when Newsom snuck off to a very fancy restaurant for a maskless birthday dinner for a lobbyist pal. Who wouldn’t have muttered “this guy has to go”?Bret: It was also emblematic of out-of-touch California elites who live on a totally different planet from the one in which there’s a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis, an affordability crisis, an addiction crisis, a pension crisis, a schooling crisis, a power-outage crisis, a wildfires crisis, a water-shortage crisis and maybe even another Kardashian crisis — all in a state that’s under almost complete Democratic Party control.Gail: But now recall reality is creeping in. People are looking at the conservative Republican who’d probably wind up as Newsom’s successor and realizing there are way worse things than a tone-deaf politician.Bret: California could really benefit from breaking up the Democrats’ electoral monopoly. Too bad the state Republican Party did itself so much damage with its terrible anti-immigration stance in the 1990s.Gail: Having two consistently competitive parties is good — when a party has hope of winning an election, it’s less likely to snap up a crazy person or a ridiculous person as a candidate. Which I’m afraid does get us over to Newson’s potential Republican successor, Larry Elder. Speaking of Republicans, anybody coming up now who’s winning your heart?Bret: Liz Cheney: gutsy and principled. Adam Kinzinger: ditto. Ben Sasse: decent and smart. Larry Hogan: ditto. John McCain: historic, heroic, humane — but tragically deceased. Basically, all the folks whose chances of surviving in the current G.O.P. are about as great as a small herd of gazelles in a crocodile-infested river.Gail: You’ve picked five Republicans, none of them stars on the rise and one long since passed away. Trump still has a grip on the heart of the party. Which is why I haven’t given up hope that we’ll lasso you back into voting Democratic in 2024.But way, way more topics for discussion before that. Have a good week, Bret, and let’s make a date to discuss the results of the California recall next time. If Newsom wins, we’re all going to be watching avidly to see where he holds his victory party.Bret: He should try holding it at an actual laundromat this time, not the French Laundry.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      La estrategia del gobernador de California frente a la revocatoria: ‘Gavin Newsom contra el abismo’

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      Conforme se acerca la votación en la que podría ser destituido, el gobernador invoca a una figura familiar de la política estadounidense: el expresidente Donald Trump.SACRAMENTO — A medida que la campaña para destituirlo llega a su último fin de semana, el gobernador de California, Gavin Newsom, está insistiendo en la opción que ha presentado a los votantes desde el comienzo del proceso para la revocatoria: o Donald Trump o él.“Derrotamos a Trump el año pasado, y gracias, pero no hemos derrotado al trumpismo”, ha repetido el gobernador durante las dos últimas semanas en un bombardeo de recorridos de campaña y llamadas por Zoom. Desde la resistencia a las vacunas hasta el negacionismo climático, dice, todo lo que aterrorizaba a los liberales californianos sobre el último presidente está en la papeleta. Y mucho más que su propio futuro personal pende de un hilo: “Es una cuestión de vida o muerte”.Sus oponentes lo cuestionan. El gobernador, dicen, es el problema, y la destitución nunca habría llegado a unas elecciones si una masa crítica del estado no se hubiera resentido por sus restricciones pandémicas a las empresas y las aulas, incluso cuando sus propias finanzas estaban seguras y sus hijos recibían instrucción en persona. El expresidente, señalan, no es candidato. “Newsom es un alarmista”, tuiteó recientemente David Sacks, un capitalista de riesgo de Silicon Valley que apoya la destitución.Solo tres gobernadores se han enfrentado a votaciones de destitución en Estados Unidos antes que Newsom, y él —y el poder demócrata— está haciendo todo lo posible por presentar el esfuerzo como una toma de poder radical, con algunos partidarios incluso comparándolo en un momento dado con el violento intento del 6 de enero de bloquear la elección del presidente Joe Biden.Al invocar a Trump como su oponente de elección, Newsom está retomando un mensaje que ha usado en el pasado para mitigar las críticas de manera efectiva, mientras que también está probando una estrategia que es probable que se replique entre los demócratas que buscan movilizar a los votantes en las elecciones intermedias en todo el país el próximo año.En efecto, el líder que los californianos eligieron por abrumadora mayoría en 2018 no se postula siguiendo las políticas demócratas de un demócrata que busca reelegirse tanto como atendiendo un llamado a la acción urgente, aunque conocido, contra una amenaza existencial a los valores del estado azul.Las encuestas sugieren que Newsom está siendo convincente, y se ha adelantado a sus oponentes, un súbito enfoque de las mentes demócratas después de que los probables votantes indicaron a principios de este verano que la carrera se podría estar apretando. Una encuesta publicada la semana pasada por el Instituto de Políticas Públicas de California reveló que solo el 39 por ciento de los posibles votantes, en su mayoría republicanos, apoyan la destitución, mientras que el 58 por ciento piensa votar en contra.Su ventaja entre las votantes ha sido especialmente sólida, reforzada en los últimos días por las apariciones de la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y las senadoras Elizabeth Warren y Amy Klobuchar. El presidente Biden hará campaña con él el lunes y el expresidente Barack Obama y el senador Bernie Sanders aparecen en sus anuncios de campaña.Ha acumulado unos 70 millones de dólares en contribuciones contra la revocatoria. Eso es menos que los cientos de millones de dólares que se gastaron el año pasado, por ejemplo, en la lucha por una iniciativa sobre la protección laboral de los trabajadores por obra, pero aún así es mucho más que el dinero acumulado por los otros 46 aspirantes en la votación. Además, su equipo ha movilizado un enorme esfuerzo de captación de votos con decenas de miles de voluntarios que envían mensajes de texto a decenas de millones de votantes y hacen campaña por él en siete idiomas.El gobernador también ha tenido avances en la lucha contra el coronavirus, ya que los nuevos casos se han estabilizado en todo el estado y el 80 por ciento de los californianos que cumplen los requisitos han recibido al menos una dosis de la vacuna. Por el contrario, Orrin Heatlie, un republicano que es sargento jubilado de la oficina del alguacil de la zona rural del norte de California y principal promotor de la revocatoria, no ha podido hacer campaña últimamente por la iniciativa que él mismo puso en marcha. En una entrevista por mensaje de texto, Heatlie dijo que estaba enfermo en casa con COVID-19.El panorama ha reforzado la afirmación del gobernador de que su destitución socavaría la voluntad de la mayoría de los californianos, y ha recordado a los votantes que la destitución era una posibilidad remota hasta la pandemia. Los californianos, que al principio apoyaban las órdenes sanitarias de Newsom, se cansaron de las complicadas órdenes sanitarias del gobernador. El descontento llegó a su punto álgido en noviembre, cuando Newsom fue visto sin mascarilla en un exclusivo restaurante de la región vitivinícola después de instar al público a evitar reunirse. Una orden judicial que ampliaba el plazo para la recogida de firmas debido a los cierres por la pandemia permitió a los partidarios de la revocación aprovechar el malestar.La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris en un mitin a favor del gobernador Gavin Newsom en San Leandro, California, el miércoles.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesEn California hay 5,3 millones de republicanos, y aunque el estado no hace pública la afiliación partidista de las personas que firman las peticiones, los demócratas señalan que solo se necesitaban 1,5 millones de firmas de votantes para llevar la revocatoria a una elección especial. La mayor parte de la energía y el financiamiento iniciales llegaron de la extrema derecha: los habituales de Fox News, como Newt Gingrich y Mike Huckabee, promovieron la destitución. Los primeros mítines contaron con la presencia de activistas antivacunas, devotos de QAnon y manifestantes vestidos con el eslogan ‘Hacer grande a Estados Unidos de nuevo’.Y, según los demócratas, la derecha ganará a nivel nacional si Newsom es destituido. Si el escaño de la senadora Dianne Feinstein se abre prematuramente, el gobernador de California nombrará a su sustituto, y un republicano cambiaría el control de la cámara al Partido Republicano.Sin embargo, los observadores más veteranos señalan que el enfoque del gobernador también está probado en el tiempo.“La estrategia de Newsom ha consistido en recordar a los votantes lo que se le quitaría si se fuera, en lugar de lo que ha dado mientras está aquí”, escribió recientemente Joe Eskenazi, escritor político de San Francisco, en el sitio de noticias Mission Local, al señalar que el gobernador retrató de forma similar a un oponente progresista como “Gavin Newsom contra el abismo” en su campaña a la alcaldía de San Francisco en 2003.También es una variación de una estrategia desplegada en 2012 por Scott Walker, el exgobernador de Wisconsin y el único gobernador en la historia de Estados Unidos que ha vencido una revocatoria. Walker, un republicano del Tea Party, se enfrentó a una reacción adversa por sus esfuerzos para reducir los derechos de negociación colectiva de la mayoría de los trabajadores públicos. En lugar de adoptar una postura defensiva, Walker describió el intento de destitución como una toma de poder de los sindicatos de empleados públicos.Esta imagen sobrecargó la base republicana del estado y desató un torrente de dinero de donantes conservadores de fuera del estado. La victoria no solo salvó el puesto de Walker, sino que también impulsó su perfil político nacional.El futuro político de Newsom depende ahora de ese tipo de movilización. Las matemáticas están de su lado.Los demócratas superan en número a los republicanos casi dos a uno en California. Su campaña ha actuado con antelación para disuadir a cualquier aspirante demócrata fuerte. E incluso con sus críticos, Newsom parece tener más apoyo que cuando los californianos destituyeron al exgobernador Gray Davis y lo sustituyeron por Arnold Schwarzenegger en 2003. En aquel momento, siete de cada diez votantes desaprobaban la actuación de Davis.Las reglas de votación pandémica que impulsaron la participación a un récord de 81 por ciento de los votantes registrados en 2020 siguen vigentes, lo que permite que los más de 22 millones de votantes registrados del estado voten gratis por correo.Paul Mitchell, vicepresidente de Political Data Inc., un proveedor de información sobre los votantes que no se inclina por ningún partido, dijo que casi el 30 por ciento del electorado ya ha votado, con la participación de los votantes independientes significativamente retrasada y con muchas más boletas demócratas que republicanas hasta ahora.“Si llegan al 60 por ciento de participación”, dijo Mitchell, “es casi matemáticamente imposible que Newsom pierda”.Orrin Heatlie, la figura más visible a favor de la revocatoria, en su casa en Folsom, California, en febreroMax Whittaker para The New York TimesPero no hay garantía de que lleguen a esa “cifra dorada”. La participación entre los votantes jóvenes y latinos ha sido “ínfima”, dijo. Hasta hace poco, las encuestas mostraban que muchos demócratas no sabían que había una revocatoria.Y Newsom, a pesar del 53 por ciento de aprobación de su trabajo, no ha tenido la popularidad personal de, por ejemplo, el exgobernador Jerry Brown, su predecesor. El gobernador debe rechazar la destitución con decisión, dijo Steve Maviglio, un consultor político demócrata de California, “porque si el margen es estrecho, habrá sangre en el agua”, lo que podría complicar la reelección de Newsom en 2022.La papeleta de votación pide a los californianos que respondan a dos preguntas: ¿debería Newsom ser destituido, y si es así, quién debería reemplazarlo? Si una mayoría simple vota no a la primera pregunta, la segunda es discutible. Pero si se aprueba la destitución, el puesto de gobernador será para el aspirante más votado, aunque solo una pequeña parte del electorado lo elija, una característica que ha provocado pedidos de reforma por parte de los críticos.Nathan Click, antiguo portavoz del gobernador que ahora trabaja en contra de la destitución, dijo que el equipo de Newsom comprendió desde el principio que tendría que presentar sus argumentos con rapidez. Ya en diciembre —seis meses antes de que la revocatoria estuviera oficialmente calificada para la votación— los partidarios del gobernador hicieron eco del lenguaje de sus respuestas a la petición oficial, denunciando a los proponentes como “extremistas antivacunas pro-Trump”.En enero, el presidente del Partido Demócrata del estado llamó a la destitución “un golpe de estado en California”, comparándolo con la insurrección del 6 de enero. Y en marzo, Newsom utilizó su discurso sobre el “estado del estado” para denunciar a los “críticos de California que están promoviendo una toma de poder político partidista”.Ahora, el nombre de la campaña de Newsom —“Paren la revocatoria republicana”— pretende movilizar al partido dominante del estado. Sus anuncios de televisión y las redes sociales imploran a los votantes que detengan la “descarada toma de poder republicana”.En sus discursos, Newsom ataca al aspirante principal, el locutor conservador Larry Elder, como un clon de Trump que deshará imprudentemente los avances del estado en la lucha contra las infecciones por COVID-19 y “vandalizará” la identidad de California.Larry Elder, el aspirante principal en contra del gobernador Newsom, en un evento de campaña en Thousand Oaks, el lunesAllison Zaucha para The New York TimesAl igual que en el caso de Walker, la estrategia ha inspirado la recaudación de fondos. La ley estatal de financiación de campañas limita las donaciones a los aspirantes individuales, pero trata las revocatorias como iniciativas de los votantes, permitiendo contribuciones ilimitadas. Elder —cuya retórica trumpista ha sido descrita como un regalo para Newsom— ha recaudado hasta ahora unos 13 millones de dólares; los cheques para el esfuerzo antirevocatoria de más de 100.000 dólares han sumado por sí solos más de 50 millones de dólares. Los sindicatos de empleados públicos y los progresistas han sido especialmente generosos con el gobernador.Los defensores de la revocación predicen un final más reñido de lo esperado, pero en cualquier caso, dicen, han tenido éxito. Mike Netter, quien ayudó a lanzar la petición de Heatlie, dijo que su grupo de base ha crecido hasta unos 400.000 californianos que ya están organizando medidas de votación sobre la elección de la escuela y otras causas conservadoras.“Nadie creía en nosotros, pero nos hemos metido en la boleta, tenemos a toda esta gente y no vamos a desaparecer”, dijo Netter. “No creo que nadie esperara que Gavin Newsom tuviera que gastar 68 millones de dólares para que la carrera estuviera tan reñida”.Shawn Hubler es corresponsal de California radicada en Sacramento. Antes de unirse al Times en 2020, pasó casi dos décadas cubriendo el estado para Los Angeles Times como reportera itinerante, columnista y escritora de la revista. Ha compartido tres premios Pulitzer. @ShawnHubler More