ONLY A THIRD? Newsom approval plummeting with a third of voters support recall amid COVID-19 criticism, poll finds. “Gov. Gavin Newsom’s job approval rating among California voters has plummeted, driven largely by dissatisfaction over the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and adding fuel to a Republican-led recall campaign, according to a new poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. . . . California voters were almost evenly split when asked whether Newsom has done a good or bad job as governor, a precipitous drop from September when two-thirds of those polled gave him high marks. The poll, released Tuesday morning, also found that just 31% of those surveyed thought that Newsom and other state government leaders had done an excellent or good job handling the pandemic, while 23% said they had done a fair job, and 43% called it a poor job.”
Plus: “Less than half of California voters — 46% — approved of Newsom’s job performance, a dramatic slide for a governor who was elected with a historic margin of victory in 2018 over Republican challenger John Cox and defeated a slate of Democratic challengers in that year’s primary. Just four months ago, Newsom had a 64% approval rating — among the highest of any California governor in the last 50 years at the same point in their first term.”
What’s astonishing is that the numbers aren’t worse.