By Brooke Staggs | Orange County Register

Successful recall elections often depend on one factor: low voter turnout.

People who want to kick an elected official out of office are highly motivated to cast ballots, while people satisfied with the status quo are not. As a result, recall elections are disproportionately determined by recall supporters, even if they represent just a fraction of all registered voters.

That dynamic is key in the current special election to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Even though registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in California by nearly two to one, and Newsom was elected with a record-high 61.9% of the vote in 2018, a number of recent polls show likely voters just about evenly split on whether to sink or save the Democratic governor.

With ballots hitting mailboxes this week, and election day itself slated for Sept. 14, the big question is, will voter turnout be high enough to save Newsom?

“I think right now, if the election were held today, we’d probably have a 30% turnout,” predicted Katie Merrill, a Berkeley-based veteran Democratic strategist.

Turnout for most special elections in California peaks at around 33%.

“That’s problematic,” Merrill said.

And not just for Newsom.

The fate of California’s highest officeholder could be determined by a third of its registered voters, while a much smaller slice of Californians could choose Newsom’s replacement. That’s not great for representative democracy.

Low turnout elections also nudge candidates to focus on firing up their core base by leaning hard into their most partisan views, since they don’t need to sway middle-of-the-road voters to win.

That might be why this year’s leading GOP contender, radio host Larry Elder, recently walked back his previous statements in which he acknowledged the fact that Joe Biden fairly won the presidency. It also might be why Elder and all GOP challengers — including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who’s often touted as a moderate — have vowed to ban statewide mandates aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

There are several factors working against a higher-than-average turnout in the Sept. 14 recall, from lopsided voter enthusiasm to the confusing mechanics of a recall election to voter exhaustion.

“It may sound silly to some people, but there is probably a large portion of the electorate that is quite uninterested in this election,” said Newport Beach-based pollster Adam Probolsky.  “They heard something about a recall, something about Republicans being angry. But they’re not really engaged at all.”

Two factors suggest there’s time to change that trajectory. First, every registered voter in the state is getting a ballot sent to their home. Second, Newsom’s campaign war chest is huge.

Both factors are why Probolsky predicts recall turnout eventually will be closer to 50%, which should be enough to keep the governor around — at least until he’d be up for re-election again in November 2022.

But there’s never been a statewide recall in the middle of a global pandemic, with mail-in balloting the norm. And California’s only gubernatorial recall — in 2003, when voters booted Gov. Gray Davis — drew a whopping 61% turnout for a reason that’s not in play this time around.

“In 2003 you had Arnold Schwarzenegger on the ballot, and that’s exactly why — the sole reason why — you had such high turnout,” Merrill said. “It was far more about having a celebrity of that level on the ballot.”

The enthusiasm factor

The good news for Newsom is that his approval rating remains at 50% despite falling in recent months. The other good news for Newsom is that just over 24% of California voters are registered as Republican, while 46.2% are registered as Democrats.

But a poll conducted in early August by CBS News and YouGov found that 78% of GOP voters said they “definitely will vote” in the recall while 73% of Democrats said the same. And while 54% of all registered voters supported Newsom, that edge narrowed to 52% when looking at people likely to actually vote by Sept. 14.

“Every poll has shown that the voters that are most engaged in the race right now are the ones who want to recall Gavin Newsom,” Merrill said.

Democrats may also have gotten a later start on engagement.

“I don’t think most Democrats thought Newsom was in trouble,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles lawmaker and public affairs professor at UCLA. “They thought, ‘He can’t possibly lose, this is a blue state.’”

The confusion factor

One issue that could dampen voter turnout is the complex recall voting process.

The recall ballot asks two questions that aren’t intuitively yes or no.

The first question is, “Should Gavin Newsom be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor, yes or no?” People who want to keep Newsom have to answer in the negative, a seemingly counterintuitive move that might confuse some voters.

The second question on the recall ballot is this: “If he’s recalled, who should replace him?” Some people who vote “no” on the first question may not cast any vote on the second, perhaps thinking their choice won’t count. Voters can answer both or either question.

Another issue that might confuse voters on both sides is the potential choice of any Newsom replacement.

Republicans have yet to coalesce behind a single candidate, which might leave some GOP voters unsure of who to support. Meanwhile, there’s no established big-name Democrat on the ballot to replace Newsom if voters chose to boot him.

What’s more, Democratic voters are hearing mixed messages. Newsom and the Democratic Party are telling voters to leave the second question blank, focusing instead on getting a “no” on the recall question. But others — including the Democrat leading in some polls, Kevin Paffrath — are urging Newsom supporters to cast a vote on the second question.

That all adds up to confusion for some voters, who may find it easier to just ignore this election in a year where deciding something as simple as whether to eat in a restaurant is complicated.

The money factor

It’ll be up to Newsom and his supporters to overcome that confusion and get voters to return their ballots. For that mission, they have one huge factor working in their favor: cold, hard cash.

Newsom and political action committees supporting him had raised more than twice as much money as all of the leading GOP contenders combined by midsummer, with more cash coming in each day. That can buy a lot of voter outreach and education.

So far, Newsom’s team has been a bit quiet, Merrill said.

But she believes that’s because Newsom’s team is doing what every smart campaign does: save its resources for the most critical time. In this case, she suspects that will start around Sept. 1.

Republican candidates, by comparison, have very little money in the recall race. And while Newsom only has to communicate one message, to vote no on the recall, challengers have to convince voters to vote yes and to vote for them.

As Newsom’s campaign ramps up, Yaroslavsky predicts voter engagement also will pick up.

“People are starting to focus on the stakes and what it means for Newsom to be out of office,” he said. “The stakes are pretty high, and everybody needs to know it.”