Gavin Newsom capitalizes on new recall attempt with fundraising appeal

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has quickly seized upon a new recall effort, seeking to parlay that into an opportunity for Democrats to win the neighboring state of Nevada come November.

The recall effort by the group Rescue California to oust Newsom was given the green light this week to proceed to the signature collection phase in its long-shot bid to cut the governor’s time in office short. 

California election law requires recall petitioners to gather valid signatures from at least 12% of the total number of registered voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election in order to force a statewide election. Rescue California has until Sept. 3 to get a minimum of 1.3 million signatures, or about 12% of the 10.9 million votes cast in the last election for governor. The signatures must be obtained from at least five California counties, according to a memo from Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office. 

Newsom has faced at least half a dozen attempts to unseat him since he took office in January 2019. All but a campaign in 2021, which was spearheaded by a retired Yolo County sheriff’s sergeant but had Rescue California’s fundraising prints all over it, failed to qualify for the statewide ballot. 

Rescue California, a conservative activist group, is hoping to beat the odds this time and is arguing Newsom’s political aspirations are coming at the expense of everyday Californians.

“Gavin Newsom has abandoned the state to advance his presidential ambitions, leaving behind a $73 billion budget deficit and a public safety, immigration, and education crisis,” Rescue California’s campaign director Anne Dunsmore said. “California needs a full-time governor who is fully focused on the serious problems the state and its citizens are facing. This may be our last opportunity to rescue and restore our state, while we highlight for the rest of the country the destruction Newsom has left in his wake.”

Newsom has devoted a considerable amount of time to raising his national profile in recent months. He’s crisscrossed the country, visited Florida and Alabama, fundraised to run ads in red states promoting abortion rights, and has operated like he’s running a shadow campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. While he has denied he’s interested in a 2024 White House bid, some Californians have expressed their impatience with their camera-ready governor. 

“Things are getting worse [in San Francisco] because people like Gavin Newsom and [San Francisco Mayor] London Breed are too busy trying to become president or get reelected,” resident Marcus Burwell told the Washington Examiner ahead of the state’s primary election. “One thing they are both getting good at is ignoring problems in California.”

For his part, Newsom has dismissed the latest “wasteful” recall attempt as an effort by Republicans to divert attention from restricting abortion rights and support former President Donald Trump’s bid for a second White House run.

But he has sought to spin a distraction into an opportunity. On Wednesday night, his political action committee issued a new fundraising email calling for support of the Nevada Democratic Party. 

“We’re emailing about the Republican attempt to recall Governor Newsom in California and we’ll get straight to the point: we’re asking you to help us defeat the far-right Republicans once again coming after Gavin Newsom,” the governor’s Campaign for Democracy Committee wrote in an email. “If everyone getting this email donated just $3 to the Nevada Democratic Party today, they’d have the resources to make sure Democrats win the state’s presidential and Senate campaigns.”

Newsom is arguably more vulnerable to a recall now compared to 2021, when he won the support of 62% of voters.

Although he has burnished his national credentials, likely with one eye on 2028, back home, the state of California is facing a massive budget deficit, a looming housing and homelessness crisis, and an uptick in crime. 

Rescue California has also pulled Newsom up on: Granting 700,000 illegal immigrants free healthcare at a cost to taxpayers while cutting programs for veterans; keeping schools closed during Covid longer than other states and thereby “allowing California students to fall further behind in basic skills such as language and mathematics;” closing prisons and ordering “the release of thousands of dangerous criminals onto our streets;” weakening public safety laws; spending billions on government homeless programs that have failed; and forcing “Californians to suffer under the highest taxes in the nation and the highest home prices outside Hawaii.”

Despite the group’s success in getting their recall effort to the signature stage, the group might already be at a huge competitive disadvantage.

Rescue California is more than a million dollars in debt, with much of the money still owed to staff from the 2021 failed effort. Public relations firm Gilliard Blanning & Associates, which brought in more than $1.4 million, and Monaco Group, a Santa Ana conservative-aligned mail house that collected more than $1.9 million for sending out petitions, claim they have not been paid. 

Rescue California is also being sued by Jesse Powell, the founder of crypto exchange Kraken, who gave the failed 2021 effort $1 million, according to the San Francisco Standard, which first reported the story.

Dunsmore, a former campaign bundler for Rudy Giuliani‘s failed presidential run in 2007, told the outlet that Powell’s dispute was over his contribution but didn’t provide details. 

She also said she did not personally “make that much” money from the first recall because she was paying a staff of 10 to 15 people. 

“Nobody walked out of that last round rich, at all,” Dunsmore added. “We came out of it exhausted. But we also felt we had done our job in getting on the ballot.” 

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Ann Ravel, the former head of the Federal Election Commission, sounded the alarm about dark money going to Rescue California during its involvement in the 2021 recall attempt. This week, she said the size of debt Rescue California is carrying into its 2024 effort is raising “red flags.”

“It’s incredible to have that much debt,” she said.