Does Gavin Newsom Even Have a Chance at Retaining his Job?

As Elections Attorney and newly announced U.S. Senate candidate Mark Meuser said, “If you read the Emerson College poll that came out today, you would think that Gavin Newsom has a slight lead in keeping his job. However, if you read the underlining data, it shows that Gavin might lose in a blowout on September 14th.”

Gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder is up to 23% and Newsom only has a 2 point keep lead. “Someone else” is polling higher than candidates John Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, Kevin Kiley, Kevin Faulconer and Kevin Paffrath. And 40% are undecided. That’s a lot of undecided voters only 47 days out from the Sept. 14th Recall Election.

Just last week, the Globe reported on the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times survey which showed Governor Gavin Newsom within 3 points of being recalled when voting is broken down to likely voters this September.

Elder polled at 18% last week, with 31% of Republicans backing him as of late July.

The Globe spoke with Mark Meuser and compared notes on the latest poll and the data.

“First, looking at the data, we see that the hispanic community is 54.4% planning on voting for the recall,” Meuser said. The state of California has approximately 35% registered Hispanic voters. But this poll only made up of 24.2% hispanic voters, Meuser noted. “It appears that this Emerson poll has under sampled hispanic voters.” This is also posted on his Senate campaign Facebook page.

“Hispanics are the only racial group in favor of the recall (54% recall/41% keep), while White respondents were split (48% recall/49% keep),” Emerson Poll reported. “Majorities of Black respondents (41% recall/57% keep) and Asian respondents (30% recall/49% keep) were in favor of keeping Newsom as Governor.”

Meuser continued: “Second, the Emerson poll sampled 46.4% democrats, 23.1% republicans, and 30.5% other parties, which may be close to actual party affiliation breakdowns.” However, Meuser said they do not track with typical turnout in California for special elections. “During special elections, Californian republicans tend to turn out in much higher numbers,” he said.

As the Globe reported last week, it already wasn’t looking good for Gov. Newsom.

“Based on those most likely to vote, the recall is now within the margin of error, with recall yes votes now only 3% away, 47% to 50%.”

“By party, the situation is even more dire for Democrats. While 91% of Democrats intend to vote to keep Newsom, 95% of Republicans said they would vote to recall Newsom, along with a near even 46%-50% split slightly in favor of keeping Newsom among voters with no party affiliation and 68% of minor party voters in favor of ousting Newsom.”

California Hispanic voters significantly support recalling Governor Newsom, but don’t favor a candidate yet to replace him. Enterprising gubernatorial candidates may want to invest in Spanish-language radio and television ads to reach these valuable underrepresented voters.

Here is the Emerson polling data: ECP_CA_Aug_1 (1)