Fact check: Are Trump Republicans who contested the 2020 election behind the Newsom recall?
In multiple ads, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s anti-recall campaign has painted the effort to remove him from office as led by Republicans who contested the results of the 2020 presidential election and are now trying to make it harder to vote.
“The same Trump Republicans who refused to accept the presidential election are back,” one ad says. “Now they’ve set their sights on California.”
“We’ve seen Trump Republicans across the country attacking election results and the right to vote,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren says in another ad. “Now they’re coming to grab power in California.”
Claim: Republicans who have questioned the outcome of the 2020 election and advocated for laws that Democrats say amount to voter suppression are leading the effort to recall Newsom.
Rating: Largely true.
Details: Characterizing the entire recall movement as motivated by pro-Trump forces stretches a bit too far. Yet prominent Republicans with ties to Trump are driving the effort, and some of them have supported efforts to toughen voting laws in other states. Trump hasn’t publicly supported the recall, but those in his corner certainly have.
Former Trump administration official Richard Grennell became an early face of the recall on Fox News when he went on the network and urged Californians to sign the petition.
Larry Elder, who recent polls show to be the frontrunner among candidates trying to replace Newsom, is a vocal Trump supporter who said Tuesday he believes “there were shenanigans in the 2020 presidential election,” despite telling The Sacramento Bee editorial board that he thought Biden won the election “fairly and squarely.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee prominently questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election and has become a major supporter of the recall, donating $175,000 to the effort and campaigning for it in Fresno. High-profile recall backers Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have also questioned the validity of Joe Biden’s win against Donald Trump.
Gingrich and Huckabee both publicly supported Georgia’s new voting law, which Democrats contend will make it harder for many people to vote. The new law restricts the amount of time for early voting in the state and imposes new voter ID requirements, two of the many aspects of the law Democrats characterize as an effort to suppress votes. Nunes voted against legislation in Congress that aims to stop states from enacting such laws.
Newsom’s campaign also points to Anne Dunsmore, the campaign manager for one of the leading recall groups.
The longtime Republican fundraiser and political operative, who worked for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani, has more recently led the Institute for Fair Elections, which has tried to find inactive or inaccurate voter registrations and report them to elections officials. Dunsmore says the group’s work is to promote election integrity, and many states conduct list maintenance. Democrats worry that those who move frequently or vote rarely could be removed.
On Wednesday, a judge tentatively ruled that Newsom’s argument that “the recall’s leading supporters are the same national Republicans who fought to overturn the presidential election and launched efforts to undermine the right to vote across the country” could remain in the official Voter Information Guide.
Recall proponents had argued the statement and other parts of Newsom’s argument painting the movement as Republican were false, but the judge cited substantial evidence that those statements were largely true, if somewhat hyperbolic.
In her ruling, Judge Laurie M. Earl noted that lead recall proponent Orrin Heatlie is also a registered Republican who said he was skeptical of Biden’s victory. She also noted both Heatlie and his co-proponent Mike Netter had publicly supported Trump.
That said, not everyone who supports the recall is a Trump-supporting Republican. The pro-recall campaign has pointed to multiple Democrats who support the recall.
Polling shows recall opinion mostly split along party lines, with the vast majority of Democrats saying they oppose the recall, albeit with less enthusiasm than Republicans who support it. A poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley published last week, for example, found 87% of Republicans support the recall, while 9% of Democrats do.
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Fact check: Are Trump Republicans who contested the 2020 election behind the Newsom recall?."