Yesterday was Election Day for a lot of people, so let’s look at the results!
California Recall
California Governor Gavin Newsom faced a recall — a ploy by California Republicans to try to get one of their own in the governor’s mansion because they know they can’t win in a proper election. The GOP was hoping attacking Newsom on his pandemic restrictions was their ticket.
They turned out to be wrong. Very wrong.
But of course, that’s not what the polls were showing just a month ago. As a reminder, this is what the polls did over the last couple of months:
Time will tell what helped Newsom come back from that 50-50 split in August, but I have to think that a lot of Democrats getting the word out about the election and begging voters not to be complacent had something to do with it.
In the end, as I finished up this post (last night), Newsom was way ahead in the vote count, with 69.4% voting no and 30.6% voting yes. And that was enough for all the major media outlets to call the race for Newsom.
Thank you to any and all of you who voted in this election, and/or helped to get the word out about this election!!
Special Elections
There were also two special election to fill state legislative seats — one in Tennessee and one in Iowa.
In Tennessee, Republicans easily held onto their House District 29 seat. The Republican won with 80% of the vote. (It did not help that the Democratic candidate was accused of sexual assault right before the election.)
In Iowa, House District 37 had been held by the Republicans but it is considered a swingy district. Trump won this district twice. The Republican candidate did prevail, but election analysts noted that this election only went for the GOP candidate by 3 points, whereas Trump had won it by 9 points.
These results are pretty much in line with all of the other special elections for state legislature seats this year — very few seats are flipping (either way.)
Next Up
The next “big” election will be the Virginia elections in November, when voters in that swing state will vote for their governor, state assembly and more. You can read THIS for more information about what it at stake in these elections, plus some ideas of how each of us can help. And as always, keep an eye out for my monthly election calendars for other elections happening all over the country.
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I will never understand the inability or unwillingness of the Democratic leadership to prioritize a 50-state election plan, especially in swing districts. Did most people even know about the Iowa seat? The CA and VA gubernatorial races are crucial, but every House seat is crucial. It’s painful to see ‘gettable’ seats slip through Democrats hands with little introspection. Am I overstating this observation?
Not being in Iowa, it’s hard to know what resources the party put towards flipping that seat. Not every race can (or should) be nationalized. Which makes it hard for those of us not in those districts to know what efforts were made.
Glad to hear Newsom retained his office. The others elections show how idiotic people still are. The Republicans have proved themselves unworthy over and over, but some voters just don’t care!