More than five percent of potential ballots have been returned in the Sept. 14 recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a data firm. Political Data said the returned ballots already number more than one million with three weeks to go in the election.
The overwhelming majority of the mail-in ballots are from Democrats despite the fact that pollsters have pointed to a possible enthusiasm gap between Republicans who are much more motivated to remove Newsom from office and Democrats who may not be driven to vote.
Raphe Sonenshein from the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State Los Angeles told KNX that based on polling results, “It doesn’t appear to be a problem at all to get Republicans to vote.”
However, elections consultant Robb Korinke with Grassroots Labs pointed to practical issues that might keep Republicans from sending in a ballot.
“You could have a chunk of the Republican electorate that is distrustful of mail elections [and those who] may not realize that there are no polls to go to yet... That could play against them,” said elections consultant Robb Korinke with Grassroots Labs.
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“It's really hard for me to see this race being much closer than five or six points and [Newsom] losing by that margin. I think he could lose by a lot more if you have Republican turnout that is in line with a general election, 75 to 80 percent, and they all vote to recall,” he said.
Korinke said the Democratic turnout would have to collapse, reflecting turnout numbers similar to those in a low interest primary race, for the recall election to even be competitive.
The firm’s data tracker is available here.
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