Newsom's maskless appearance at the expensive ($350 a plate) French Laundry restaurant, celebrating the birthday of a Democratic lobbyist, was an unforced error, perhaps characteristic of a politician whose core constituency has been San Francisco billionaires.
Jewish World Review "The nation's largest state has just voted in an election triggered by one of the nation's weirdest recall processes, and the results have come out just about where they've been before.
"California Gov. Gavin Newsom was elected governor in 2018 by 62% to 38%, a result that was, unsurprisingly in an era of straight-ticket voting and strong partisan allegiance, almost identical to President Joe Biden's 64% to 34% margin over Donald Trump in 2020.
"As of this writing — and it has taken California weeks to fully count its votes in recent general elections — incomplete returns show 64% of Californians voting against recalling Newsom and only 36% for removing him from office.
"That result makes the second question on the ballot about who should replace the governor irrelevant. But it did enable Democrats to spend enormous sums linking Larry Elder, the conservative radio talk host who led in polls on the replacement question, as a clone of Trump.". . .