Shenanigans. Last night after the fact, he did Let Go Of The Big Lie strategy. This is what he said. My opponent, Governor Gavin Newsom [ booing ] come on, lets be gracious. Lets be gracious in defeat. And, by the way, we may have lost the battle, but we are going to win the war. Now, elder is already hinting at a run for governor in 2022, so lets bring in cnn white House Correspondent Phil mattingly for more on the results. Walk us through this. Brianna, look, going into the night there were a couple things that were very clear. Democrats hold a major Registration Advantage in the state and, therefore, republicans who wanted to recall Gavin Newsom needed a bunch of things to happen all at the same time in a rather momentous manner. None of those things happened. Take a look at where things stand right now. 70 reporting, obviously this race has been called. Gavin newsom will remain governor. Hes 2. 5 million votes ahead. But look at the percentage. 63. 9 . Track back to, say, last year
After crushing a republican-led recall attempt. newsome s tough coronavirus policies validated by the state s democratic voters who said, no to the recall by a nearly 2-1 margin. the governor thanking his supporters and sounding a warning about attempts to undermine democracy. i think about just in the last, you know, few days, the former president put out saying this election was rigged. a democracy is not a football. you don t throw it around. it s more like, i don t know, an antique vase. you can drop it and smash it in a million different pieces, and that s what we re capable of doing if we don t stand up to meet the moment and push back. republican front runner larry elder took a page from the trump playbook in the last few days. he has suggested the outcome of the election will be affected by
That tells you everything you need know about how gavin newsom is still governor of the state of california. here s another thing. we saw very clearly over the course of the last come of weeks in the race a significant focus on the pandemic. a significant focus on combatting the pandemic. let s pull out of the voter data and into the exit poll data. in that exit poll data you understand what the newsome campaign was seeing and why that message was so effective. most important issues facing california, covid, number one. 31%. above homelessness, the economy, wildfires and crime. now, what about newsome s covid policies? he s actually put into place? 45% of those in the exit poll said it was about right. not strict enough 18%. too strict 32%. again, very much so on the side of newsome. now moving to those specific policies, how did californians in the exit polls view vaccinations? 63% say a public health responsibility. only 34% say a personal choice. what about mask mandates? obviously
Have been out of your mind. you would have been out of your mind. what they did was make this election about donald trump. it s very clear. republicans have dug themselves a deep hole. despite a fantastic campaign of raphael warnock and jon ossoff would not have won in georgia. the texas abortion decision has galvanized american women. this is what you get when you vote for the republican party. that message was incredibly well honed by the newsome people and by national democrats in the last six weeks, and it lifted newsome, who was really pretty close to a dead heat in this race. and some people thought he was going to lose to a 30-point win. that was about turnout. the reason that your polls show what they show is because democrats aren t indifferent. it was a lot more than gavin newsom on the ballot in california last night. it works in california with a
Contentious throughout the country. not in california. school mask requirement in california, the support level 70% compared to 25% oppose. if you want to know why the newsome campaign went all-in on this issue, well, they were looking at numbers and those numbers absolutely translated come election night, guys. all right, phil mattingly, thank you so much for taking us through that. and joining us now to discuss the california recall election results, former presidential candidate and former vermont governor and former dnc chairman howard dean. you know, just top line for us, what is the big take away for you? i think what sort of looking forward, because this is a race obviously very important to california, but nationally democrats we re watching this as well. what s the takeaway? the takeaway for me the democrats finally figured out what the strategy is to win. if you had said that eight weeks ago that gavin newsom was going to win by 30 points, people would have thought you