A petition to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom has reached more than 1.4 million signatures and is only 100,000 names off triggering a mid-year election.
The 54-year-old star of the Democrat Party has seen his approval rating dive because of the state’s oppressive Covid restrictions and a botched vaccine roll-out.
More than a third of voters said they would oust Newsom at the ballot box if the recall qualifies, a survey by UC Berkeley found this week.
Newsom, once widely tipped for a future White House run, is facing criticism from within his own party as the GOP-led campaign to recall him steams to a conclusion.
‘It’s like he’s putting us out to die,’ union boss Sandra Díaz told The Los Angeles Times.
She represents janitors, security personnel and other essential workers who were removed from the state’s vaccine priority tiers by Newsom.
‘It’s more important for us as a union to see this get better, no matter who that upsets,’ Díaz added.
The campaign launched by the California Patriot Coalition has until mid-March to hit a required threshold of nearly 1.5 million signatures. It has already got 1.4 million.
Launched by Orrin Heatlie, chairman of the coalition, it has the backing of potential Republican candidates including Joe Collins and Doug Ose.
Newsom faces rising dissent from political allies over his lockdown policy which has kept businesses and schools shuttered for months and seen late changes to who will be priortized for the Covid vaccine.
