Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has just gotten some interesting support leading up to the September 14 election where California voters will decide whether or not to recall him. As Fox News' Sam Dorman highlighted, Juan Lopez, the chairman of the Communist Party in Northern California and statewide coordinator on Friday along with Marilyn Bechtel penned a piece for People's World to express their support for Gov. Newsom.
As you could surely predict, Lopez and Bechtel are not fans of Donald Trump, at all. Thus it becomes the focus of their brief piece to draw a distinction between the former president and the current governor.
Early on in the piece they write:
Some Republican candidates in the recall race may employ diversionary issues and tactics or moderate their positions to hoodwink California voters who tend to be more liberal. But overtly or covertly, Republican candidates ascribe to undemocratic practices, immigrant scare tactics, racist stereotypes, sexist behavior, homophobic loathing, support for the death penalty, weakening gun laws, and climate change denial.
In essence, everything that Trump favors and Gov. Newsom opposes.
While Lopez and Bechtel list a handful of the candidates running, they fail to mention Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman who is running as a moderate Republican. While it cannot be expected for the authors to list all 46 candidates, it's curious that they would leave out any mention of Jenner as they accuse Republicans of things such as "homophobic loathing."
Richard Grenell, a gay man who was the United States Ambassador to Germany and Acting Director of Intelligence during the Trump Administration, was also considering a run.
"According to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll, while just 36% of all registered voters say they would recall the governor and 50 percent are opposed, some 47% of voters who are most likely to go to the polls would vote to recall him – a difference just short of the survey’s margin of error," Lopez and Bechtel warn readers, with original emphasis.
"Clearly, electing a far-right, pro-Trump Republican to rule the most populous state in the nation, and a beacon of progressive politics, is out of the question," the piece closes in question.
Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, who is mentioned in the piece and who is running, responded on Twitter, calling on Newsom to disavow the support.
BREAKING: Communists are rushing to @GavinNewsom’s defense against the recall.
— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) July 30, 2021
There are countless individuals in CA and across the country whose families were forced to flee the evils of communist regimes. He should disavow their support immediately.https://t.co/GInGi7cRrH
As of Friday evening, the piece is one of the most popular for the site.
As Jeremy B. White reported on Wednesday for POLITICO, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has made such a connection as well, in an ad for Newsom where she makes reference to "Trump Republicans."
Trump has not weighed in on the race. He likely stayed away as he waited to see if Grenell was going to run, which he ultimately did not.
White makes note of how this underscores the concerns Democrats actually have when it comes to the race:
But Warren's appearance in a homestretch spot both demonstrates the recall's national dimensions and underscores the risk to Newsom that unenthusiastic Democrats will not vote.
Republicans are far more motivated to participate in the recall election, which could help them surmount registration and fundraising disadvantages. A new Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll on Tuesday found that the recall is virtually tied among the voters most likely to turn out — a slice of the electorate that is more Republican than California's overall, Democratic-dominated voting population.
That increases the urgency for Newsom to turn out his base and cut through complacency among Democrats who are confident the recall will fail. In the new advertisement, Warren specifically tells voters they will receive ballots in the mail.
Newsom immediately telegraphed the peril in a Wednesday email to supporters highlighting the tight polling.
"Let us be very direct and very honest: if we do not have the resources we need to turn out our voters, we could lose this recall," a fundraising email warned.
The tactics don't appear to be simply for the sake of fundraising. A Thursday piece for FiveThirtyEight warns that "Gavin Newsom Has Reason To Worry."
The piece says that "perhaps the most intriguing development in the race has come in recent polling," which is that "after the recall looked uncompetitive for months, evidence has emerged that the race is tightening."
Polls referenced include:
Until last week, there had been no new polls of the recall election in about a month. But since then, we’ve gotten two — and both showed Newsom in danger of being recalled. First, an Emerson College/Nexstar Media survey found that 48 percent of registered voters in California wanted to keep Newsom in office, while 43 percent wanted to recall him. Then, a poll from the University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times found that 50 percent of likely recall voters wanted to keep Newsom and 47 percent wanted to oust him. These fresh polls — both within the margin of error — differed markedly from a handful of surveys released in May and June that found the recall effort trailing by at least 10 percentage points.
Further, it's not just due to his handling of the pandemic:
Yet Newsom’s handling of the pandemic might not be his biggest liability. A slightly greater share of likely voters in the Berkeley poll agreed with the statement that Newsom should be recalled “because he has failed to adequately address many of the state’s longstanding problems,” such as homelessness, income inequality and wildfires (48 percent), than agreed with the statement that he should be recalled “because he greatly overstepped his authority as governor when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic” (44 percent).1
In other words, California voters may be displeased with conditions related to COVID-19, but other problems in the state are troubling them, too. Thus, the pandemic may not be solely responsible for what we’ve seen in the polls.
Speaking of the pandemic, Newsom has been met with many losses in the courts when it comes to his closures, including just last week.
Polls consistently show that Salem Radio Host Larry Elder, a more recent addition to the race who successfully sued to get on the ballot, is leading the pack.