Poll: Support for Recalling Gavin Newsom Surges; Larry Elder Leads Contenders

A new poll has found that a growing proportion of California voters now support recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the electorate is nearly split on the issue, while conservative radio host Larry Elder leads contenders to replace him.

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, found that 51 percent of registered voters who took part in the poll would vote to keep Newsom, while 36 percent said they would vote to recall the governor.

When examining polling results for those who are most likely to vote in the recall election, Newsom’s chances of remaining in office are almost evenly split with 47 percent saying they will vote to recall the governor and 50 percent saying they will vote to keep him.

Support for Newsom has slowly dwindled, with an 11 percent increase in support to remove him from office since the same poll was conducted in May, revealing that Newsom would likely be retained, with only 36 percent saying they would vote to recall him.

Newsom has faced immense scrutiny for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and announced Monday that California will be the first state to impose a vaccine mandate on state employees and healthcare workers, requiring they show proof of vaccination or submit to regular tests.

Those who were surveyed were also questioned on Republican candidates seeking to replace Newsom, including Elder (R), who received 18 percent support; John Cox (R), who received 10 percent support; and Kevin Faulconer (R), who also received 10 percent support.

Elder, who almost did not make it onto the recall ballot, won his court challenge of California Secretary of State Shirley Weber last week.

As previously reported by Breitbart News, Elder’s campaign sued Weber after she excluded him from the list of 41 candidates to replace Newsom. The reason given for the exclusion was that Elder allegedly failed to file complete tax returns, an accusation the Elder campaign denied.

Last week, a poll was released that showed Elder leading the many candidates in the race. On Monday, Elder, who would be California’s first black governor, spoke to Breitbart News and said he hopes “to be the first good governor” California has “had in a very long period of time.”

The poll described above was administered online in English and Spanish from July 18 to 24 and sampled a random selection of 5,795 registered voters across California. Results from the sample of voters considered most likely to participate in the election are based on the responses of 3,266 of these voters. The poll has a sampling error of approximately +/- 2 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level.

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