On Sept. 14, a recall election for California Governor Newsom will be held, the second time in the state's history that it will be recalled. According to a July 21 update by the California Secretary of State's Office to the list of candidates on the ballot, a total of 46 candidates challenged Newsom this time. There are 9 Democratic candidates, 24 Republican candidates, 2 Greens, 1 Libertarian, and 10 nonpartisans.
So is there a play to remove Newsom?
Fundraising capabilities
California law imposes no limit on campaign contributions from those who are ousted, and Newsom has received $32 million in donations, well above its challengers. The biggest fundraiser among the challengers was John Cox, a Republican businessman from Rancho Santa Fe, who raised $5.2 million.
Behind Newsom is the support of California's two pillar industries, technology and entertainment. The billionaires wrote five-, six- or even seven-figure checks, using large sums of money to help Newsom out of trouble.
From the newsom boycott election or the collection of signatures, Silicon Valley has now raised more than $30.9 million for Newsom and Hollywood for him. Part of the list is as follows:
Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings: $3 million, which makes him the biggest donor in the gubernatorial recall election.
Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo: $200,000
Yahoo co-founders and Chinese philanthropists Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki: $129,600
Sean Parker, former president of Facebook: $64,800
Jeff Skoll, a former eBay executive: $33,400
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google: $100,000
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams: $50,000
Doordash co-founders Young Chinese-American Andy Fang and Stanley Tang: $166,666 each
Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs: $200,000
Paramount Pictures, a company of Paramount Pictures: $40,000
Dana Walden, former chairman of Disney Studios and ABC Entertainment: $5,000, plus $10,000 for ActBlue, a progressive group that helped Feeder raise money
Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of Disney Studios: $64,800
Thomas Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures: $32,400
Bad Robot Productions: $64,800
Famous film director and producer Steven Spielberg: $64,800
Musician Sia Furler: $5,000
Venture capitalist Ron Conway: $200,000
George Soros, the "financial tycoon": $250,000 for anti-recall campaigns and $12,500 for the 2022 campaign
The people on these lists are very important not only in California, but also in the United States and the world. Newsom absorbed almost all of the offerings from Silicon Valley and Hollywood moguls, with the rare exceptions of:
Larry Ellison, Chairman of Oracle: Donated $32,400 to caitlyn Jenner, a reality TV star and Republican candidate
John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco: Donated $7,400 to Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego and Republican candidate.
But while the leaders of these big companies are spending money on Newsom's election, their companies are fleeing California. Large companies such as HP, Oracle, and Tesla have announced their move away from California, and giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have campuses or data centers in Texas, and continue to add expansions. Netflix set up its studio last year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Disney is planning to move about 2,000 jobs from its California headquarters to Florida.
Newsom's trump card
California's $80 billion fiscal surplus is Newsom's "king bomb." In setting the budget for the new fiscal year, Newsom was more at ease than the previous Governor, Gray Davis, who was facing ouster for dragging California into bankruptcy, and proposed the largest budget in the state's or any state's history, including the $100 billion "Plan to Reinvigorate California," which pays millions of people directly, and billions of dollars for housing, debt relief, preschool education and broadband.
Under California law, taxpayers can get a tax refund when the fiscal surplus reaches a certain size, which has happened only once in California for four decades, and this is the second time that Newsom has caught up. $600 per person, eligible families with children, can get an additional 500 yuan tax refund, including illegal immigrants. The spending amounted to $8.1 billion, after the state had already allocated $3.8 billion to a $600 bailout to millions of illegal immigrant families.
On the issue of homelessness, on July 19, Newsom signed a $12 billion housing and homelessness grant program, the largest housing and homelessness grant in California's history.
In response to the epidemic, a total of $116.5 million in vaccine incentives was introduced, and the largest prize money in the United States was issued. On July 14, Newsom announced another $5.2 billion in grants to help tenants pay off all rent they owed from April last year to the end of September. Another $2 billion has been set aside to help people pay their arrears in utility bills.
On the night of July 12, Newsom also signed the API Equity Budget, using a $156.5 million budget to fulfill its commitment to address racial discrimination against Asian-Pacific americans. The results were also immediate, and on July 16, San Francisco's Chinese community leader Lim Chis held a press conference to announce the formation of The People for a Brighter Future in support of Governor Newsom. Many Chinese officials, including California Equalization Bureau Chairman Malia Cohen, California Rep. David Chiu, and Frimont Mayor Lily Mei, spoke on the spot calling for opposition to the recall.
In addition, there are $1.3 billion in annual subsidies to low-income people over the age of 50, including illegal immigrants, to enroll in Medicaid; the launch of the nation's largest free public school lunch program, 6.2 million students to eat free school lunches, regardless of family income, and so on... These are also based on California's fiscal surplus.
Of course, industries that actively donated to Newsom also received a "peach in return," and on July 21, Newsom signed a bill at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood to give $330 million from California's fiscal surplus to the film and television industry.
In short, as Newsom recently released in his first advertisement for the recall election, the family sits on the couch with a smile on their faces and a huge $1,100 above their heads, and the voiceover says, "Newsom put the money in your pocket." And the subtext is, you're going to put votes in Newsom's pocket.
Poll data
According to a July 19-20 poll conducted at California Politics/Emerson College in California, 43 percent said they would vote to remove the governor. There doesn't seem to be enough support for Newsom's ouster at the moment.
The survey sampled more than 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.
About 48 percent of respondents said they would vote for the governor. 43% said they would vote to remove them. 9% of respondents believe that it has not yet been decided.
49% of respondents agree with Newsom's overall performance as governor, while 42% disagree. 10% are not sure.
But Newsom is not resting his head, because in another question, "Regardless of the outcome of the recall, will you support the current government or do you think a new one should be replaced by a change of government in 2022?" A whopping 58 percent of voters want a new person, while only 42 percent are happy with Newsom — suggesting that even if he survives this recall election, he still faces serious danger in the 2022 election.
For Newsom's response to the outbreak, 20 percent thought it was very good and 33 percent thought it was bad. On the issue of homelessness in California, 52 percent of respondents thought Newsom was poor, and only 7 percent said it was very good. In the handling of large-scale wildfires in California, 36 percent of respondents thought it was poor and 12 percent thought it was good. In response to California's current drought, 35 percent of respondents said it was poor and 9 percent thought it was good.
In the list of candidates for governor, there are 22 Republicans, 8 Democrats, 1 Liberal, 9 independents and 2 Green Party members. The survey found that if Governor Newsom is ousted, Larry Elder, an African-American Republican who is an African-American radio host, topped the list with 16 percent of the challengers.
Elder was previously excluded from the candidate list by the California Secretary of State's office and was only reinstated after the indictment was initiated. Although African-American, Elder argues that there is no institutional racial discrimination in the United States, that the biggest problems for blacks come from the family, and that the BLM movement is untenable. He has written several books that reflect that black issues have nothing to do with racial discrimination. Elder's presence gave rise to a leader among the opponents of Newsom.
More than 53 percent of voters did not decide who should succeed Newsom. It's also a red flag for Newsom, as it once again emphasizes that most voters — except those who supported the recall — didn't pay much attention to the election.
If the overall turnout of Californians is low, then those who actively support the recall still have a chance to make Newsom "overturn" with their high turnout.
Source: Holy Land Ya GO
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