 | | Children played while waiting for their family to order food at the Santa Monica Pier earlier this month. Crowds of tourists are hitting the pier and the beaches.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times |
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Life in California feels as if it's finally returning to normal. |
Hit a popular restaurant at the wrong time, and you'll be waiting for an hour or more. Movie theaters are open indoors. |
You could say the news is good for many Californians — and what's good for many Californians is good for Gov. Gavin Newsom. |
Mr. Newsom is facing the very likely prospect of a recall election, meaning voters would be asked two questions on a special ballot later this year: Should the governor be ousted early from his job, and if so, who should replace him? If a majority of voters say no to the first question, the latter becomes moot. |
A poll conducted this month by the nonpartisan firm Probolsky Research found that about 46 percent of voters would vote against recalling the governor if the election were held today. That's compared with 40 percent who said that they would vote to recall him, and 14 percent who said they were unsure or preferred not to say. |
"The recall would fail if the election was today," Adam Probolsky, the firm's president, said in a statement. |
Similarly, the Public Policy Institute of California, which regularly surveys residents across the state about lots of important issues, found in its March poll that 56 percent of likely voters would vote no on recalling Mr. Newsom, while 40 percent would vote yes. |
Both polls split clearly along party lines, with Republicans supporting the recall and Democrats opposing. |
 | | Gov. Gavin Newsom at a news conference in San Francisco earlier this month.Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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Early this year, in the depths of the state's deadly winter surge, frustration with the state's pandemic response grew. Momentum for a recall seemed to build, but a deadline to submit petitions was still months away. |
Mark Baldassare, the institute's president and chief executive, told me at the time that the January survey — which asked likely voters about whether they approved of the job Mr. Newsom was doing, but not whether they'd vote to recall him — suggested that there was enough support to lead to a recall election. |
But whether the largely Republican disapproval of Mr. Newsom would translate into the votes to actually oust him from office was far less clear. |
While his approval rating had dropped significantly from a peak in May 2020, it was still 52 percent among likely voters. |
The effort to quickly vaccinate as many of California's 40 million residents as possible, Mr. Baldassare said at the time, would play a large role in whether those numbers went up or down in coming months. |
Californians said they'd been hit hard by the pandemic and many were less than optimistic about their economic and health prospects. |
Now, here we are at the end of March, and Mr. Newsom himself has acknowledged that a recall election is probably going to happen. |
But Mr. Baldassare told me on Tuesday that approval of Mr. Newsom's job performance has largely held steady, while Californians said they had a much brighter outlook. |
About three in four Californians said they believed the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is behind us — an increase of 16 percentage points from January. If that proves to be true, then Mr. Baldassare said the worst of the recall effort may also be in the rearview for Mr. Newsom. |
"Memory is fading that things got off to a rough start," Mr. Baldassare said. "People are feeling much more relieved about where things are with Covid and the vaccines." |
So if we're on track to have a recall election, but one whose results are likely to reinforce the status quo, what is Mr. Baldassare, a longtime California pollster, watching? |
"Who decides to run?" he said. "And will there be anyone that changes the dynamics in place right now?" |
But Mr. Baldassare said that a recall election would inevitably affect the governor's race next year, which is when Mr. Newsom would be up for re-election anyway. |
"There's always a possibility that this doesn't make it easier for those who want to see change in the governor's office in 2022," he said. "Because you've just had an election." |
In any case, Mr. Baldassare said we shouldn't overlook some of the other significant shifts in public opinion that have most likely been driven by a historic public health crisis that has highlighted the ways in which everyone's health is connected. |
A large majority of Californians, 66 percent, support providing health care coverage to undocumented immigrants, up from 54 percent in 2015, which was the last time the institute asked that question. |
"If there's one thing I saw where I thought, 'Well this must be something the pandemic has really moved the public opinion about,'" he said, "it's this." |
Here's what else to know today |
 | | Cesar Chavez, the farm labor leader, picketed outside the San Diego-area headquarters of Safeway markets in 1973. The protest was over the arrest of 29 people at a Safeway in Delano.Bettmann/Getty Images |
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Compiled by Jonathan Wolfe |
- Today, Cesar Chavez Day, the first lady, Jill Biden, is set to visit the Forty Acres, a historic site in Delano that became the headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America. "That is a great birthday present for Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers and the Latino community," Dolores Huerta, the United Farm Workers co-founder, said. [The Bakersfield Californian]
- The Biden administration detailed actions to address violence against Asian-Americans, including training for local governments on anti-Asian bias, increasing accessibility to hate crime data and establishing nearly $50 million in grants to support survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault who face language barriers. [New York Times]
- Two mass vaccination sites, at the Oakland Coliseum and at California State University, Los Angeles, are set to close next month because state officials didn't request that the federal government continue to operate them. [CapRadio]
- California's senators and around two dozen representatives asked the federal government to make wildland firefighting a year-round job, arguing that wildfires are no longer limited to the traditional fire season. [Associated Press]
- California's unemployment system has been hobbled by clogged customer service lines, long waits, and even fraud. The state is also out of unemployment money. [CalMatters]
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 | | A man walking past a mural of George Floyd on a downtown Oakland office building on Monday. The mural was painted shortly after Mr. Floyd's death last year.Jim Wilson/The New York Times |
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- Across California, the memory of George Floyd looms large. Read all of The Times's coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer facing murder charges. [New York Times]
- The sheriff of Placer County fed conspiracy theorists when he made a statement linking a local man's death to the coronavirus vaccine. New emails reveal that the sheriff pushed ahead with the announcement, even though the autopsy reports were pending, and health officials begged him not to make a statement. [Sacramento Bee]
- The San Francisco school board has infuriated parents and the mayor. Now it has descended into chaos over accusations of racism. [New York Times]
- California's major utilities — including PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — asked the state to reduce bill credits to solar customers by more than half. [Sacramento Bee]
- Workers at Tartine Bakery in San Francisco unionized, after a yearlong battle. [San Francisco Chronicle]
- Universal Studios Hollywood is scheduled to reopen April 16. [Los Angeles Times]
- The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk will reopen Thursday. [San Francisco Chronicle]
- You know Annie's Mac and Cheese. It's based in Berkeley. But its founder, Annie Withey, is not. Get to know her. [SFGate]
- U.C.L.A. is heading to the Final Four in the men's N.C.A.A. basketball tournament after the Bruins stunned Michigan. Stanford is heading to the Final Four in the women's tournament. But U.S.C. lost. Catch up on all The Times's coverage here. [New York Times]
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Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter. |
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley. |
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