Buried in the disappointment of California’s recall election results for Republicans is one data point that will further undercut a Democratic dream nationally, showing that demographics are not actually destiny.
Although Gavin Newsom saved his seat by a double-digit margin, the governor actually lost support among Latino and black voters relative to recent elections, according to exit polls. It’s important to note that the data from Tuesday is not conclusive, but even compared to early exit polling data in 2020, it helps make the case that the GOP’s gains with Latinos aren’t going away.
CNN’s exit polls from last year’s presidential election found that 75% of Latinos and 82% of black voters in California went for Joe Biden compared to 51% of white voters. By contrast, last night’s exit poll found that just 58% of Latinos and 81% of black voters wanted to keep Newsom. Among white voters, Newsom actually gained support compared to Biden.
A recall election in an off-year randomly scheduled in September during a pandemic is bound to have irregularities, and California still hasn’t tabulated all of the mail-in and drop-off votes allowed under its radically overhauled system. Furthermore, despite his victory, Newsom, a silver-spoon trust-fund baby from San Francisco whose entire career has been bankrolled by the Gettys, is unique among Democrats, who tend to tout more diverse candidates.
But as evidenced in 2020, the GOP gains under Donald Trump weren’t just among Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade but also among Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans in the Rio Grande Valley. Although the California Republican Party is one of the weakest in the nation, top recall candidate Larry Elder, a black institution of talk radio from South Central Los Angeles, made crucial inroads with the state’s Latino voters, especially away from the donor class on the coast dominated by Newsom.
So sure, Orange County, once called the Orange Curtain thanks to the GOP stronghold it maintained on the coast, posted wildly disappointing numbers for Republicans, who were optimistic after reclaiming two congressional seats last year. But only 61% of voters in Imperial County, the inland country with the highest proportion of Hispanic voters in the state, voted to keep Newsom compared to 64% statewide at press time.
Republicans should be disappointed at losing the battle to unseat Newsom, but they’d be fools not to continue to capitalize on the GOP’s growing appeal among Latinos, a crucial tool in the greater wars to come.
