Recall campaigns making final election pitches in Fresno. Plus, the latest on ballots
The California recall election is in its final week and the Fresno-area continues to be a destination for candidates.
Considered the front runner among Republicans, conservative radio host Larry Elder made a stop in Clovis on Tuesday to push the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. He has another rally planned Thursday morning in Fresno.
While Elder may be the biggest contender, Newsom led the latest poll Wednesday by Suffolk University. That polling showed Newsom had 58% of the vote in California, which would be enough to keep him in office.
But the train to unseat Newsom rolls on with the conservative Rescue California campaign planning a stop in Fresno on Thursday. Campaign manager Anne Dunsmore will return with victims advocate Marc Klaas, who were both in town in July for the same reason.
Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has made multiple stops in Fresno, and appeared Tuesday in a virtual press conference with Klaas as well.
Assemblymember Kevin Kiley and businessman John Cox have also visited the Fresno area. Libertarian Jeff Hewitt, a supervisor in Riverside County, was in Clovis in August.
Ballots returned
The Fresno County Registrar of Voters Office has collected more than 141,000 vote-by-mail ballots through Wednesday morning, according to James Kus, the registrar.
That is almost 28% of Fresno County’s 506,594 registered voters, according to the latest count of voters. Kus has said he expects to see a 50% to 55% turnout before the election is over.
The only other recall in recent memory — the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray David in favor of action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger — drew about 190,000 votes from Fresno County’s 336,000 registered voters at the time, a 56% turnout, according to election staff. The county looks significantly different this year.
Kus said voters should be aware of misinformation pushed online, saying bad actors will often share an Election Day date that is later than the real date, Sept. 14. Social media is much more often the culprit for misinformation than traditional snail mail, he said.
Polling in the state
Some in-person voting centers began opening Sept. 4, which had some experts watching the returns for a potential spike in Republican voters.
In Los Angeles and Orange counties, for example, many more ballots received by mail came from registered Democrats while those voting in-person were more likely to be Republican, according to numbers from Political Data Inc., a voter information tracker.
But, with that state’s 22 million registered voters leaning more Democrat (10.3 million) than Republican (5.3 million), the returned ballots still weigh in favor of registered Democrats, Political Data Vice President Paul Mitchell wrote in his elections newsletter. About 6.5 million voters fit into other party affiliations.
About 3.4 million Democrats have returned their ballots compared to 1.6 million Republicans, according to the voter information tracker.
“Essentially, Republicans are cashing in on the in-person voting, roughly doubling their share of the electorate,” he wrote. “But that’s less than a 10% slice of the electorate.”
How to vote
Election Day is Sept. 14. The ballot has two questions. The first is a “yes or no” question on whether to recall Newsom. The second question is a vote on who should be his replacement.
It is too late register online to be able to vote, but anyone can still visit the downtown registrar’s office or a voting center to register.
Some voting centers have begun operating during daytime hours with more opening their doors on Saturday. Voters can still mark their ballots and return them in the mail or put them in a drop box by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The registrar’s website, fresnovote.com, is updated regularly with changes to drop box locations. Voters can also use the online tool to find the nearest drop box.
Anyone can check the status of their ballot at the “Where’s My Ballot?” page from the California Secretary of State’s Office. For any ballot problems and fixes, call the county registrar’s office at 559-600-8683.
