Non-Newsom Recall Effort: A Democratic Tsunami that Swamps the GOP?

By Colleen O’Connor

It could happen.  It might happen.  Odds are increasing that it will happen.

What began as a Republican “double down” big bet is looking like a “big wave” wipeout.

The Republicans’ strategy of recalling Governor Newsom (amid COVID, fires, homelessness, drought, and MAGA-Trumpian grievances among voters), seemed clever.  Even at a cost of taxpayers of $276 million.

The reasoning was sound.  It was a gamble with a back-up plan.  Even if the recall campaign failed to oust Newsom, the attack ads would be ugly enough to weaken him for a possible defeat in his 2022 re-election fight.

As an added bonus, the data collected from the anti-Democratic “liberal /socialist agenda” pollsters, might just turn the Orange County Republican women back into the GOP column with enough votes to dump Pelosi as Speaker and gavel in Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy.

All perfectly timed for the much hinted-at Trump presidential come-back campaign in 2024.

Think about it.

Here are the GOP bonfires fueling their hopes; the “Big Steal” push about the 2020 Trump loss; the subsequent election “audit” hunts for fraudulent ballots; and the dismissal of the January 6 riots as merely “tourists’ visits.”

Add the exodus from the Afghanistan war and the resultant chaos at the Kabul airport; plus the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic with ever new mutant strains; and the non-Mexican immigrant caravans now marching toward the border; and one recognizes the GOP recipe for possible success.

More fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves and power outages only contributed to GOP optimism.

And they were scoring big.  Judicial reversal of Voting Rights Act provisions; smothering climate change proposals; altering census counts and prepping for newly GOP gerrymandered congressional districts; and state-by-state restrictions on ballot access with hundreds of new conservative judges upholding the changes; all designed to usher in more Republican officeholders.

That strategy persists; with California currently ground zero.  Meaning: Recall Newsom, force out Pelosi, defeat Biden/Harris, then bring back Trump-ism.

Once a clever strategy.  Yet, sometimes “too clever is stupid.” Or as Tom Hanks’ Forest Gump character declares, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

And now the GOP strategy appears stupid. They are cornered.

Why? They did not do the math, believed their own echo-chamber, and neglected to give themselves an off-ramp.

First the math on the Newsom Recall.

• California lists more women voters than men.  And they vote in greater numbers than men.  Same for national numbers.
• The latest poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, released Thursday, shows that 62% of likely women voters approve of the job the governor is doing running the world’s fifth-largest economy.
• Even more women — 66% — told the institute they are against the recall.

Then came the un-forecasted tsunami that threatens to drown Republicans.

To wit: the U.S. Supreme Court decision on women’s healthcare rights (delivered via a “shadow docket,” without a hearing or lower court rulings); posted in the dead of night; and affirming a newly-minted Texas anti-abortion law, that substitutes government enforcement with “citizen” vigilantism.

This 5-4 decision, declaring the half-a-century 1973 Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade, null and void.  With a kicker that provides no exemptions, whatsoever, for cases involving rape or incest.

The “stunning” ruling has rendered the GOP consultant class almost speechless.  Even Fox News seems muted.

The new moniker, aka the “Taliban Texas” anti-women’s rights law, has already awakened the slumbering ghosts of the #MeToo movement and galvanized liberal icons.

Overnight, Newsom’s once “close” recall has morphed into a “landslide” possibility.  Sensing not just a win, but the outsized symbolism of a big victory in next week’s California vote, all of the liberal icons (Senators Sanders, Warren, V.P. Harris and President Biden himself) are campaigning in the state.

For early clues, watch for the polling among those once Republican Orange County women who voted Democratic in 2018; electing several new members to the House, and returning Pelosi to her Speakership role.

It was an historic night for Democrats where they captured every Republican seat in that birthplace of the John Birch Society and site of Richard Nixon’s western White House.

In 2021, California may no longer be an outlier, but instead, prove to be Thomas Jefferson’s  warning about a “fire bell in the night.”

Non-Newsom Recall Effort:

A Democratic Tsunami that Swamps the GOP?

It could happen.  It might happen.  Odds are increasing that it will happen.

What began as a Republican “double down” big bet is looking like a “big wave” wipeout.

The Republicans strategy of recalling Governor Newsom (amid COVID, fires, homelessness, drought, and MAGA-Trumpian grievances among voters), seemed clever.  Even at a cost of taxpayers of $276 million.

The reasoning was sound.  It was a gamble with a back-up plan.  Even if the recall campaign failed to oust Newsom, the attack ads would be ugly enough to weaken him for a possible defeat in his 2022 re-election fight.

As an added bonus, the data collected from the anti-Democratic “liberal /socialist agenda” pollsters, might just turn the Orange County Republican women back into the GOP column with enough votes to dump Pelosi as Speaker and gavel in Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy.

All perfectly timed for the much hinted-at Trump presidential come-back campaign in 2024.

Think about it.

Here are the GOP bonfires fueling their hopes; the “Big Steal” push about the 2020 Trump loss; the subsequent election “audit” hunts for fraudulent ballots; and the dismissal of the January 6 riots as merely “tourists’ visits.”

Add the exodus from the Afghanistan war and the resultant chaos at the Kabul airport; plus the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic with ever new mutant strains; and the non-Mexican immigrant caravans now marching toward the border; and one recognizes the GOP recipe for possible success.

More fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves and power outages only contributed to GOP optimism.

And they were scoring big.  Judicial reversal of Voting Rights Act provisions; smothering climate change proposals; altering census counts and prepping for newly GOP gerrymandered congressional districts; and state-by-state restrictions on ballot access with hundreds of new conservative judges upholding the changes; all designed to usher in more Republican officeholders.

That strategy persists; with California currently ground zero.  Meaning: Recall Newsom, force out Pelosi, defeat Biden/Harris, then bring back Trump-ism.

Once a clever strategy.  Yet, sometimes “too clever is stupid.” Or as Tom Hanks’ Forest Gump character declares, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

And now the GOP strategy appears stupid. They are cornered.

Why? They did not do the math, believed their own echo-chamber, and neglected to give themselves an off-ramp.

First the math on the Newsom Recall.

·         California lists more women voters than men.  And they vote in greater numbers than men.  Same for national numbers.

·         The latest poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, released Thursday, shows that 62% of likely women voters approve of the job the governor is doing running the world’s fifth-largest economy.

·         Even more women — 66% — told the institute they are against the recall.

Then came the un-forecasted tsunami that threatens to drown Republicans.

To wit: the U.S. Supreme Court decision on women’s healthcare rights (delivered via a “shadow docket,” without a hearing or lower court rulings); posted in the dead of night; and affirming a newly-minted Texas anti-abortion law, that substitutes government enforcement with “citizen” vigilantism.

This 5-4 decision, declaring the half-a-century 1973 Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade, null and void.  With a kicker that provides no exemptions, whatsoever, for cases involving rape or incest.

The “stunning” ruling has rendered the GOP consultant class almost speechless.  Even Fox News seems muted.

The new moniker, aka the “Taliban Texas” anti-women’s rights law, has already awakened the slumbering ghosts of the #MeToo movement and galvanized liberal icons.

Overnight, Newsom’s once “close” recall has morphed into a “landslide” possibility.  Sensing not just a win, but the outsized symbolism of a big victory in next week’s California vote, all of the liberal icons (Senators Sanders, Warren, V.P. Harris and President Biden himself) are campaigning in the state.

For early clues, watch for the polling among those once Republican Orange County women who voted Democratic in 2018; electing several new members to the House, and returning Pelosi to her Speakership role.

It was an historic night for Democrats where they captured every Republican seat in that birthplace of the John Birch Society and site of Richard Nixon’s western White House.

In 2021, California may no longer be an outlier, but instead, prove to be Thomas Jefferson’s  warning about a “fire bell in the night.”