Calls for both leaders to step down from office have grown since fires started tearing through the swanky hills of Los Angeles on Jan. 7. An online petition demanding Bass step down has garnered more than 166,000 signatures. Newsom was notified of recall papers on Tuesday due to an effort spearheaded by Californian activist Randy Economy. 

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Critics of the two leaders say they have lost critical support from voters in the Los Angeles area. A questionable response to the fires is the latest frustration voters have had as California has struggled with homelessness, drugs, crime, and the cost of living. Others argue that the pair has a solid chance of survival if they can convince voters that they are successful in swiftly rebuilding the battered state. 

Economy’s group, called Saving California, had 105 people sign on as co-authors and sponsors of his petition when it served Newsom notice of the recall effort earlier this week. The governor has a 10-day period to respond to the petition, after which the secretary of state must recognize the petition. Once she gives it her stamp of approval, Economy’s group has roughly five months to collect an estimated 1.3 million signatures. 

This isn’t the first time Economy has tried to push Newsom out of office. A similar recall effort in 2021 fell far short. 

But this time, Economy told the Washington Examiner that the tone of the recall movement has changed, and its supporters come from Newsom’s own party. 

With the fires destroying swaths of Los Angeles, anger toward Newsom is growing even in reliably blue territory, Economy said during an interview this week. The recall effort is also garnering support from numbers of other prominent Democrats, including celebrities, former and current members of the state legislature, and members of Congress, he added. Several who have expressed private support will be “coming out and joining us publicly very, very soon,” Economy said. 

Newsom’s political team slammed the recall effort as coming from a “group of far-right MAGA acolytes” in comments to the Washington Examiner.

“Governor Newsom is focused on marshaling resources for fire recovery – not politics. Readers still should have the context that the same group of far-right MAGA acolytes have launched 7 different recall attempts against the governor since he’s taken office, each of which has failed spectacularly,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said.

But on Monday afternoon, Economy said that within three days, nearly 10,000 Californians had used his recall website to sign up as volunteers to pass around the petition.

“It’s night and day,” Economy said of recall efforts this time around compared to 2021. “You can’t compare it.”

“This one here … the anger is palatable, and the anger is coming from Gavin’s base, and that is the people who live in the heavily Democratic areas of Pacific Palisades and Pasadena, who have lost absolutely everything due to gross mismanagement of fires, fire protection,” Economy said. “So I think that’s the difference that I can see thus far is the fact that this isn’t divided up into, you know, ‘it’s the crazy factor going ahead and trying to get rid of the governor.’ Everybody’s angry right now.” 

California resident Matt Capelouto, who lives in Riverside County, agreed that the fires have been a turning point for how the Los Angeles area, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 3 to 1, views Newsom. 

“There’s the significant Californian backlash against the governor and leadership at this point. I think people are starting to not see things as Republican or Democrat. I mean, know these are issues– our infrastructure—it affects all of us,” he told the Washington Examiner. 

Residents aren’t seeing the fires as a “right or left issue,” Capelouto said, but as “a leadership issue, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on.”

Family Ties star Justine Bateman is one of the disillusioned Californian celebrities who lined up to back the Newsom recall effort last week and slammed Bass as well. 

Far from the typical Republican of 2021 bashing Newsom, Bateman seemed relatively apolitical during a recent interview with the Free Press, saying she had never really given politics a lot of thought, and declined to confirm if she voted for President Donald Trump, or former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election. 

But after the fires wrecked her state, she told Substack journalist Emilie Hagen that she found “Newsom and Bass to be the most detached and insensitive and the most uncaring of the citizens of any leadership we’ve had so far.” 

“I mean, I just feel these people don’t care. That’s the bottom line,” Bateman said.

Her comments come as Newsom and Bass face scrutiny over their leadership after the fires, including questions about why some of the state’s largest water reservoirs sat empty when the disaster sparked, and why the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget was cut shortly before the crisis occurred.

Economy is also taking steps to launch a recall effort for Bass. 

“There are some legal proceedings that you have to do with the Secretary of State, and the city of Los Angeles, as far as filings are concerned. And I think we are taking those initial steps right now,” he said. 

A petition to remove Bass from office has more than 166,000 signatures but doesn’t have the power to actually remove her from office. 

Still, it demonstrates the resentment building against her in Los Angeles. 

There is “real anger” against Bass, Steven Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant based in Sacramento, told the Washington Examiner. However, he suggested the initiative to remove her wasn’t a big deal, calling the number of signatures on the petition just a “drop in the bucket” compared to the city’s population, which sits just under 4 million. 

When questioned on Bass’s reaction to the petition, a spokesman for the mayor declined to comment directly on the effort, stating instead that “Mayor Bass is leading our city through one of the worst crises in our history” and facing “staggering” misinformation surrounding the fires. 

Maviglio believes both Bass and Newsom’s political fate will be determined by how smoothly rebuilding efforts go. The governor’s slew of executive actions cutting regulations surrounding new construction and other measures taken in the aftermath of the fires are going to great lengths toward salvaging his image, making the Democratic consultant sanguine about Newsom’s future. But Maviglio, who worked with Bass when she was in the state assembly, was more hesitant about the mayor, saying her political survival “remains to be seen.” 

“I just saw a poll yesterday that her approval rating was pretty low right now, but the proof will be in the pudding. And how quickly things get moving back to normal. They’re not there yet,” he said. “I hate to use the metaphor being a slow burn, but it’s gonna whether she’s able to turn things around and exceed expectations on what people are hoping for, that’s gonna determine her political future.”