The incumbent governor of California Gavin Newsom easily defeated the costly effort to recall him, with the Associated Press calling the race just 45 minutes after polls closed. It appears that about 65% voted against recalling him. The official vote count may not be known for another 30 days. It cost the state about $276 million to hold the recall election. That does not include the money raised and spent by the candidates. When you consider that Newsom will be up for re-election in just over a year, this recall effort seems particularly unnecessary.

Newsom painted this race as a Republican and Trumpian effort and that message seemed to work for him.

Speaking in Sacramento, Newsom said that in voting no on the Republican-led recall, Californians said “Yes to science, we said yes to vaccines.”

“I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercise their fundamental right to vote,” Newsom said, “and express themselves so overwhelmingly by rejecting the division, by rejecting the cynicism.”

The leading Republican candidate Larry Elder has, like Trump, resorted even before election day to claiming election fraud without providing any evidence. But it appears that after the results were announced he conceded defeat.