The effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom is continuing to gain traction, with at least 1.25 million signatures collected out of the nearly 1.5 million verified signatures required to call a special election.
Anne Hyde Dunsmore of Rescue California—the organization behind the effort—told The Epoch Times that the campaign expects to reach 1.3 million signatures by Jan. 29.
With seven weeks to go before the March 17 deadline, Rescue California ultimately hopes to see about 1.8 million signatures, as many are often removed during the process of validation.
During validation, signatures can be removed because of duplicates, if the person is not a registered voter, or for other reasons.
Dunsmore said the county registrar’s office has found an 84 percent validity rate so far, based on the last reported number in early January, but that direct mail-in signatures have been at around 98 percent validity. Once submitted to the registrar’s office, these mail-in petitions will help to increase the validity rate.
Dunsmore, Rescue California’s campaign manager and finance director, said she believes Newsom lifted the stay-at-home order to increase popularity with voters who could potentially sign the recall petition.
“No question about it,” she told The Epoch Times. “That’s exactly the kind of thing he ought to be doing right now is looking over his shoulder at how people feel, not at political options. He knows he’s in trouble. It was a reckless choice; he made it by the seat of his pants, and now he’s going to get criticized for it [by other Democratic leaders]. So, he’s doing it to get himself out of trouble, and then he digs himself deeper into a hole.
“There’s no rhyme or reason for [lifting the order]. It was an inconsistent decision and was yet another contradiction.”
According to Dunsmore, supporters of the campaign are happy with the results achieved so far.
“They love it. It’s inspiring whenever [Newsom] runs scared,” she said. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Dunsmore said that if the governor continues to make mistakes while leading the state, she is “pretty confident” that he will be replaced if a special election is called.
“My big concern was that people would forget [Newsom’s scandals] as time went on, but he keeps adding things in every week,” she said, adding that one of his latest scandals is the Employment Development Department fraud scam.
As far as the recall campaign goes, it’s not only Republicans supporting the cause. Democrats are also unhappy with what they see as Newsom’s overextending his orders, Dunsmore said.
So far, the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign has sent out 3.1 million mailers to potential signers and will be putting out another 400,000 next week.
If the special election does occur, the winner will be whichever candidate is able to score the most votes.
