September 17: Midterm Implications of Big Recall Win Are Mixed
Pouring over the details of the gubernatorial recall election in California, some significant patterns emerged, as I noted at New York:
The overwhelming defeat of the effort to recall California governor Gavin Newsom was a big victory for a Democratic Party that has had its troubles lately. With the margin of victory for the “no on recall” campaign roughly doubling the already-robust advantage shown in pre-election polls, the earlier scare that the recall threw into the ranks of the Golden State’s dominant party dissipated entirely. With about three-fourths of the expected vote now counted, “no” leads “yes” by a 63.8 to 36.2 margin (which could get even larger if the usual pattern of last-cast mail ballots leaning Democratic manifests itself once again).
The “no” vote was remarkably close to Joe Biden’s performance in California in 2020 (he won 63.5 percent). Given the extreme partisan polarization that underlay the recall vote (exit polls showed 89 percent of self-identified Republicans voting “yes” and 94 percent of self-identified Democrats voting “no”), that means the partisan patterns of the presidential race were reduplicated to a remarkable extent in a non-presidential special election, where Democrats often experience a “falloff,” particularly when they control the White House (and in this case, the governorship). That’s great news for California Democrats, and not a bad sign for Democrats nationally, who are bracing for the midterm losses the “White House Party” typically suffers.
But in assessing the implications of the results, it’s important to look back at what happened down ballot in California in 2020, while looking ahead to the most critical 2022 battleground, the fight for control of the House. Of the 13 net House seats Republicans gained in 2020,
four were in deep-blue California. There is no likely path for Democrats to hang onto House control in 2022 without flipping some or all of those lost seats in one of their strongest states.
Precisely because of the reduplication of the 2020 patterns, there’s really nothing about the recall returns that suggests Democrats are sure to claw back some House seats in California. Two of the four seats Republicans flipped in 2020 (with Asian-American women Young Kim and Michelle Steele as candidates) were centered in Orange County. While “no” won in Orange, the recall race there was closer than the Biden-Trump contest of 2020. A third battleground seat was the one Republican David Valadao won in a very competitive section of the San Joaquin Valley. The recall improved on Trump’s 2020 performance in every county in his district (e.g., Trump won 55 percent in Kings County, but “yes” on recalling Newsom won 63 percent). These results could reflect an intensifying alienation of this heavily agricultural area from Sacramento’s environmental and water-supply policies. Or it could reflect a drop-off in Latino turnout that could spell disaster for Democrats in close 2022 races. Either way the recall numbers should give pause to Democratic optimism about midterm House races.
One study of 2020 returns in California showed Latino turnout trailing non-Latino turnout by about 10 percent. One mail-ballot tracker for the recall showed the turnout gap between Latinos and non-Latino white voters swelling to 20 percent. Youth turnout for the recall was also terrible, exit polls suggest. Yes, these are constituencies that are difficult to mobilize in special elections. But that’s also true of midterm elections, which is a problem Democrats in California and elsewhere need to solve.
The bottom line is that Newsom won the Democratic and Democratic-leaning elements of the California electorate by strongly encouraging partisan polarization via his lavishly funded campaign. This was the obvious smart strategy in this heavily Democratic state. It’s less clear the same strategy will work wonders downballot for Democrats in 2022, which they probably will not have a big financial advantage and shifts in public opinion away from the presidential winner may have settled in, as they did for the last three presidents. Even if Democrats hang onto their monopoly of statewide offices and their super-majorities in the state legislature, any failure to make progress in House races could contribute to the much-dreaded moment when Californian Nancy Pelosi hands over her gavel to Californian Kevin McCarthy, and the Democratic trifecta that gives Biden a chance to implement his agenda comes to an end.
I can’t think of any man in America with whom the gap between his desserts and his reward is so wide. The American people owe him a huge debt of gratitude, but the way the Republicans vilified him in 2004 has made it possible for Democrats in Florida to vilify him for consequences of defying the (unanimously passed) party rules about primary dates. It has made it possible for people like Emmanuel and Schumer to vilify him in 2006 for carrying out a different set of priorities and not making himself their lackey. And now the Obama campaign officials want to gather unto themselves all credit for every political success everywhere. It’s bad enough that Dean is a prophet without honor in his own party, but a lot of dedicated (and probably not especially well-paid) people who have been preparing the ground and planting the seed are not being permitted to gather the harvest. What’s more, it looks as if the land is going to be left fallow now.
Democrats will never change: Form a circular firing squad.
Perhaps Obama feels he can do it better, but firing all these folks two weeks after the election is foolish. They learned things that just might be valuable two years from now. But then I haven’t heard Obama say one word of thanks to Dean.
Bob Griendling
This is very distressing, but Rahm Emmanuel hates Howard Dean and hated the 50 state strategy, preferring that every dime spent on grassroots party-building in off-years instead be hoarded for the DSCC and DHCC. The party apparatus will now be in the White House’s hands, and that will probably be that.
This is indeed distressing news, what I feared and extremely short sighted. I seem to remember that the State chairs wanted this process to continue and wanted Dean to remain as the leader of the DNC (though I could be wrong). There has seemed to me to be a tension between the DCCC and the DNC. Frankly, as a non-insider to the workings the workings of the upper echelon of the Democratic Party, the existence of these two independent groups makes little sense. If we are to have a unified and ongoing strategy, there should be one direction. Also, I understand that the President is the “leader” of the party. But, I would feel more comfortable with a DNC that was more independent – one that had the good of the party as a whole as its primary concern. Candidates must have massive ego strength to run. And this strength can so easily become egocentrism. It occurs to me (and as a progressive I am somewhat appalled with myself) that I would like a professional, Democratic Party machine.