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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. It's Election Day in California. By tonight, the biggest state in the Union could go from having a Democratic governor to having a very conservative Republican one align with Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, who is even setting up to claim the election was rigged if he loses. Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom may well survive this recall, according to the polls, but it's possible that he won't.

If you're not from California and wondering how can this be happening, we'll try to explain now. For those of you from California, we invite you right now to call in and explain to the rest of America what the heck is going on. Californians call in, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. We have a professional journalist about to join us as our guest, but we deputize you too.

Explain to the other 49 states why a state that voted for Biden over Trump by dozens of points is going through this right now over Governor Gavin Newsom and what do you think is at stake. 646-435-7280 if you're in California, or if you have close enough ties to California to know this kind of firsthand, 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer. With us now is Marisa Lagos, California Politics and Government Desk reporter for San Francisco's Public Radio station, KQED. Marisa, I know it's too early to be having a coherent conversation West Coast time.

Marisa Lagos: Never. It's never too early.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks very much for coming on WNYC with us. I'm sorry we couldn't provide the coffee.

Marisa Lagos: I got coffee. My eight-year-old just go get it. We're good.

Brian Lehrer: Oh God. There you go. Good training of that kid. You may have noticed that New York recently got rid of its democratic governor, while his term was still on. That guy named Cuomo. If he hadn't resigned, the process would have been impeachment, which everyone is familiar with. A recall election is not a thing in New York or many other states. Can you just explain first, how Californians wind up with an extra gubernatorial election in the middle of a governor's term?

Marisa Lagos: It's really a story that goes back a hundred years. We had what was then a progressive movement really pushing for direct democracy in the 1920s in California, and voters here approved a system that allows both for those direct initiatives that you often hear about during big elections, where we'll have 10, 20 ballot measures that we have to weigh in on statewide. This recall is another prong of that direct democracy. It allows folks who are unhappy with an elected official to essentially go out and collect a certain number of signatures from voters. It's a percentage of the last election, so 12% of those who voted in the 2018 gubernatorial election.

If they are able to get that many signatures, they can put this question before voters on the ballot and force a recall election, unlike an impeachment say, which is more of a political process. It's really, I guess, with an impeachment, you wouldn't have to have any sort of malfeasance. If the legislature wanted it to be but this is really not about-- There's no accusation of, say, breaking the law, or even in this case, really not doing their job. This really was launched even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you look at the petition, Brian, it's really about Republicans who oppose Newsom's policies around everything from healthcare to immigration, how we deal with criminal justice. It started out, honestly, as something nobody was paying attention to because pretty much every governor in California has somebody trying to collect signatures against them, and it never goes anywhere.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get into some of those policy differences as we go. How much is this recall politically possible because of that very high-profile display of hypocrisy last November, in which Governor Newsom ate indoors with a group of people at a really fancy restaurant called the French Laundry, just as he was asking everyone else not to do things like that?

Marisa Lagos: There's another thing that happened that exact same day that's the real reason. Certainly, that didn't help, I think, for people who don't like Newsom and were already angry about his pandemic lockdowns, which were among some of the strictest in the nation. The French Laundry dinner is this emblematic thing that shows what they see as this hypocrisy. I do think it's important to note that at the time, restaurants were open, he was at an open restaurant.

He had been urging Californians not to dine with people outside of their households and to be masked and all those things. There was some hypocrisy, but I think some of the accusations were that he broke his own rules. That's not technically true. There's a reason that restaurant was open. Putting that aside, though. The big thing that happened on November 6th, I think, was that a judge in Sacramento approved an extension for signature gathering. This gave proponents who had had only a hundred and sixty days, another 120 days to collect those signatures.

Of course, that French Laundry story broke. I think the bigger thing was that we were going into that winter surge and Newsom was imposing more and more restrictions as we approached Christmas. I think it just caught fire and gave them the time, energy, and money, quite frankly, from some national donors to actually get the momentum and get this on the ballot.

Brian Lehrer: Jason in LA, you're on WNYC. Jason, hello from New York.

Jason: Good morning. I love listening to you early when I wake up. As a democratic voter in California, I can honestly say that this is preposterous and stupid, and I can't help but notice the similarities between a vocal misinformed minority driving the agenda to create this political system mistake, much in the same way that happens with the anti-vax community right now. It's deeply, deeply frustrating. I think you can't disentangle the two.

Personally, the next thing that the Governor needs to do or the government needs to do here is take away the recall opportunity. It's just a waste of time. What could be the most progressive well-meaning state in the nation, has to be distracted by absolute nonsense. It's deeply frustrating.

Brian Lehrer: Would you want it if the shoe was on the other foot?

Jason: No, but also, the shoe isn't on the other foot here. It's a two-thirds majority Democrat State, and it's just not going to happen if the government can do its job properly. I think that gumming up the works is the only opportunity that Republicans have to even get that chance. That's disappointing.

Brian Lehrer: Jason, thank you very much. Marisa, what would you say to his comparison between the recall movement and the anti-vax movement?

Marisa Lagos: I think it's undeniable that there are some overlaps, in terms of the base-- not of everyone who supports this recall, of course, but we are seeing a lot of overlap. A lot of the people who really were energized to support this recall, it was in part because they didn't like mass mandates, because they don't like the vaccine mandates.

Does that mean everybody in that group is an anti-vax? No. I think that the misinformation is there, and we're already seeing Larry Elder, the top conservative candidate is stoking the same lies about election integrity before folks have even had a chance to finish voting. Former President Trump is doing it. We've seen it on Fox News. Certainly, I think there is this overlap.

It's interesting, Brian, there was actually a poll out just yesterday showing that some 60% of California voters would support reforms to the recall process. Now, they did not want to get rid of it overwhelmingly but there is a sense that it is too easy. I think we could possibly see an attempt at that next year, depending on what happens today.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the leading Republican alternative to Newsom Conservative talk show host Larry Elder. President Biden actually went to California to campaign for Newsom yesterday. Here's a clip of the president going after Elder. Let's hear how he put it.

[audio playback]

President Biden: All of you know that last year I got to run against the real Donald Trump.

[cheers]

President Biden: This year, the leading Republican running for governor is the closest thing to a Trump clone that I've ever seen in your state.

[end of audio playback]

Brian Lehrer: Can you fact-check that, Marisa? How much of a Trump clone would Larry Elder be in his policies based on his record of what he has said on his talk show?

Marisa Lagos: He frames himself as a libertarian. He says he's for things like a zero-dollar minimum wage. He doesn't believe that the government should offer, say, protections to women who have families. I think that there's a long list of-- He's anti-choice. Would he be like Trump? I think there are a lot of similarities. I think that he's made his career saying outrageous things. I think a lot of us base enjoys that. I think that similarly, I've done some reporting just thinking about what could a Republican governor do in this election where you have a supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature.

I think the chaos we saw under Trump is one area that if you have somebody putting people in bureaucratic positions, who either are there to gum up the works or just don't have the experience that that is certainly something that could be similar. Yes, I think that just a lot of his rhetoric and an approach to politics has deep, deep echoes of the former president.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Here is, let's see, Jeremy in San Diego, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Jeremy. Hi. Yes, this is me. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. We got you. Go ahead.

Jeremy: I just wanted to mention you were talking about reforms to the recall process that Californians might support. One of them is that there's such a low threshold for the number of signatures needed, and it's based on the number of people that voted in the last election. In the 2018 midterm elections, not as many people vote and so they didn't really have to get all that many signatures in order to have the recall election go through.

Having a higher signature threshold would be helpful, especially after a low turnout election, like the midterm was. Plus, as you mentioned, the signature period was extended because of the pandemic, which they weren't going to actually meet that signature threshold without that judge okaying that.

Most of the anger was about the pandemic but the original petition that they were having people sign was actually not at all related to the pandemic. All of that came out afterwards, and they've been trying to recall Governor Gavin Newsom for such a long time, just because of general liar and hatred towards the Democratic Party from this small minority of people in California.

Brian Lehrer: Jeremy, thank you very much. Back on Larry Elder, here's an example of Larry Elder in Trump world, their connection that he has had to answer for. Apparently, Elder has had Trump's very anti-immigrant advisor, Stephen Miller, on his talk show, many times. Stephen Miller, who was the architect of Trump's family separation policy, among other things.

Elder has even said that Stephen Miller should be president someday. Stephen Miller is a Californian. NBC's Jacob Soboroff asked Elder if Stephen Miller would be part of his administration if Larry Elder wins and becomes governor. Here's the beginning of that exchange, it starts with the reporter's question.

[audio playback]

Jacob Soboroff: Would Stephen Miller have a role in a Larry Elder gubernatorial administration?

Larry Elder: What does Stephen Miller have to do with this election? This election is about crime. This election is about homelessness. This election is about the fact that people are leaving California for the very first time and I stayed at 170-year history. It's about the way this man shut down the state, ignoring science. It's about the fact that a third of all small businesses are now gone forever.

This election is not about Stephen Miller. This election is about crime. It's about the rise of homelessness. It's about the fact that Gavin Newsom shut down this state while ignoring science [crosstalk]

Jacob Soboroff: Sorry to interrupt you but if Stephen Miller becomes a part of your administration. Stephen Miller is a part of this election. Will Stephen Miller become a part of your administration if you win?

[end of audio playback]

Brian Lehrer: There's Larry Elder with NBC's Jacob Soboroff. Marisa, that's a very rich clip in several ways. It addresses the issue of immigration and anti-immigrant Larry Elder's record, Stephen Miller's record and how anti-immigrant he is in that respect, and so how anti-immigrant is Larry Elder. From Elder's standpoint, it addresses what he argues are some of Gavin Newsom failings. How much has that little soundbite represent what this campaign has been like?

Marisa Lagos: I think it really sums it up and credit to that reporter for pushing him because I've seen with my other colleagues here in California. I should say, first of all, that we were supposed to have Larry Elder on our show two weeks in a row. He canceled the second time, a minute before we were set to tape. I would have loved to pose some of those questions to him as well, and yes, I think that that's really indicative of the defensiveness we've seen with him.

He seems to-- I think similar to our former president, wants to say these outrageous things to his base, but not answer for them when he's pushed on them. He got really angry at another colleague of ours in California, Ben Christopher for a similar question. I think it does seem relevant because we're trying to figure out who somebody who's never been in politics, what they stand for and to this interchange point who would be part of this administration, and Elder just does not want to talk about it.

Brian Lehrer: Well, what do you expect the share of the, let's say, Latino+Asian-American vote to be today. If we can assume that, generally, they would be from families supportive of immigration.

Marisa Lagos: Yes, I think that's a loaded question in the sense, Brian, that we know that no group is a monolith and certainly there are conservative Latinos and Asian-Americans. Look at Orange County in California. But polling is showing I think a pretty good portion of really all voters opposed to this recall, it does seem like the Latino vote, which is 27% where our electorate has been, one that all of the candidates have really tried to speak directly to. We've seen Spanish language ads from multiple campaigns. We've seen the governor himself really dig in on this fear-mongering message.

My colleagues did some reporting talking to Spanish language voters who were actually turned off by both Republican and democratic ads on this. They felt like a lot of them were making assumptions about what these voters want, but at the end of the day, all the polls in the past two weeks have shown the Democrats are coming out and that overwhelmingly, they are opposing this recall, and so just numbers-wise, it seems like it's going to be very challenging for recall supporters to get this over the finish line.

They just don't have the numbers. Republicans are outnumbered nearly two to one by Democrats. There's another quarter of the electorate that is independence that certainly have a wide spectrum among them, but I think on large part tend to skew towards the left in this state.

Brian Lehrer: Also in demographics, Elder is Black. Do the polls indicate he is drawing much Black support?

Marisa Lagos: Not that I have seen honestly, in a lot of his platform is really about speaking out in ways that might turn off voters of color, right? He's talking about the fact that racism doesn't exist. He says that affirmative action is wrong. I think that he, in some ways, speaks to a white conservative based far more clearly than he does to folks that you might expect to back somebody who could be our first Black ever governor of California.

Brian Lehrer: Right. One more thing on Elder, the news in the last day is that he setting up to say the election was rigged if he loses. I see that Donald Trump went there in a statement, very explicitly Trump himself. This statement says, "Does anybody really believe the California recall election isn't rigged? Millions and millions of mail in ballots will make this just another giant election scam, no different, but less blatant than the 2020 presidential election scam." Is Larry Elder himself setting up for a challenge of this election if he loses tonight based on a claim that it's rigged?

Marisa Lagos: He could try, I think it's a little hard to make that argument when we haven't even had the polls close here yet. The interesting thing is I think this is setting up a really challenging moment for the Republican Party here. They're still trying to get folks out to the polls. They're trying to encourage their voters. They don't want to see people not vote on the right, because they don't think that this is valid.

We've seen pushback from the party. We've also seen pushback from some high-profile folks in just like Republican politics here, other candidates. I think that this is actually potentially making it more messy for Republicans than it is for Democrats because we have long had a very expansive vote-by-mail system here. We have early voting, if you talk to registrars from blue and red counties alike, they say that we have a very secure voting system here in California, and so it's just not backed up by facts. I think the biggest impact it could have is suppressing the Republican vote.

Brian Lehrer: The presidential election being rigged claims were not backed up by fact, but now like 60% of Republicans in polls on the country say they believe the election was rigged,

Marisa Lagos: Right. It's super troubling and we've been tracking it really carefully, and I think that the difference here is just the political power really lies with Democrats overwhelmingly. Certainly, you can have the same misinformation, full-circle, to what we did opened with, but I think in terms of the actual vote itself being challenged in court, I've seen no compelling evidence for them to make. All we're hearing is just outrageous statements based on literally no data, no facts. The fact that you have a two-thirds majority in the state legislature or judicial system here that has never bought any types of these claims. Where we're going to see this continue to your point is on national media, on Fox News, the former president, Larry elder probably using it to burnish his credentials if he's not successful today.

Brian Lehrer: Relevant to point out, the courts in every state, like 80 courts altogether. A lot of these purple states decided that there was no evidence to pursue the rigged election claim. California is not unique in that respect, happy to say. This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York. WNJT-FM Trenton 80.1 Trenton. WNJP-FM Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio. Few minutes left with Marisa Lagos from KQED the public radio station in San Francisco on today's recall election in California for governor or against governor Gavin Newsom.

Just let me finish up with you on the polls because I see the polls were much closer a few weeks ago than they are today with, as you were indicating, Newsom now opening around what I saw is a 14 point lead on the basic question of whether he remains in office based on around six polls in the last week, the average of those polls. How much do you trust the polls in these cases? We know Trump was supposed to lose in 2016 and we know Brexit was supposed to lose in the UK.

Marisa Lagos: Well, I'll say two things. One is we obviously don't have an Electoral College system here, so the popular vote is going to carry the day, that's a big difference. It's also just way easier to pull in one state, we have these polls that have gone back decades, in some cases, and to your point, they're all really matching up. What we were seeing a month ago was just not a lot of engagement among Democrats, and that was super worrying to the governor's folks because they are outnumbering Republicans so heavily but if they're not voting, it really doesn't matter.

What we've seen is a total turnaround in that, Democrats do seem engaged. I was laughing in my neighborhood in San Francisco the other day, I literally saw somebody had printed out signs on their home computer, no on them setting them up. What we're seeing is a trend in that direction and it's not just polls at this point, Brian. I'm looking at this data tracker, 39% of ballots have already been returned, that's huge for a special election. Some special elections only get 15% of the electorate engaging.

Of those, 43% of Democrats have returned their ballots compared to about 42% of Republicans but again, there's twice as many Democrats. If something extraordinary would have to happen for these trends in the ballots coming back. Certainly, it's not to say every democrat is not supporting Newsom, but there's not any indication that his base turned against him and I just think, given these numbers, it seems pretty likely that those polls are relatively accurate.

Brian Lehrer: The reason that such a large number of votes could have been cast already, is that they did do, I see one of the things that the Trump folks claim makes an election most susceptible to fraud, which is that the state of California mailed an absentee ballot, not an application an actual ballot to every registered voter in the state, do I have that right?

Marisa Lagos: That's right. We've had them for maybe a month in our hands. The folks can also early vote at some locations, go in in person today, and this is the opposite of what we've seen in some southern states. I mean, California has really opened up voting and made it as easy as humanly possible. What's going to be interesting to watch is, if these numbers, these trends hold, we are expecting to see a surge of more conservative-leaning voters today, just because it seems like Democrats were sending in their ballots early, republicans might be going on to vote today.

We usually see a lot of democrats also procrastinating and turning in their ballots late. As long as your ballots postmarked by today, it has over 10 days to get to county election offices. The numbers that we have tonight or even tomorrow could change significantly, and most experts I've talked to think could grow in Newsom's favor over the coming days and weeks, actually.

Brian Lehrer: As people prepare to watch the returns tonight if they're watching that coverage, I guess we should say to what you just said that some states that became controversial on the presidential election night last year, were so because they weren't allowed to start counting all the mail ends until they were all received after election day. That fed the rigged election conspiracy theories because on election night and a few places look like Trump was winning based on the in-person vote, which was the only one counted.

As you said, Republicans tend to vote more in person, Democrats more by mail. There were many democratic votes that got counted later and people try to spin it and someone changed the result. I see that in California tonight, as soon as the polls close, there's going to be immediate release of so many mail-in ballots that had already come in, right?

Marisa Lagos: Yes, the way it works here is that, essentially, registered election officers get those ballots and they can line them up and get them ready to count. They can't actually count them until the polls close. We'll probably see a huge dump of numbers around 9:00 PM, probably hourly for the next couple hours and then again, tomorrow. I will mention something interesting, it's so funny to me, Brian, watching this debate nationally over mail-in voting and then it's become such a big issue for Republicans, because in California, prior to Trump, really, that his who voted by mail, was conservative voters, especially in rural areas.

You even have a small county up north where it's all mail-in and it's a very conservative place, so we've actually seen this flip in recent years. It just does show the power of some of this rhetoric from the former President and others to really undercut a system that many people had relied on for decades.

Brian Lehrer: No accident, I guess that the controversial new Georgia voting law makes it easier to vote in rural areas than it was and harder to vote in cities, but that's another show about another state for another day. By the way, when you said the polls close at 9:00, that's Pacific time, right?

Marisa Lagos: 8:00 Pacific time, yes.

Brian Lehrer: 8:00 pacific time. All right, Marisa Lagos, California Politics and Government Desk reporter for San Francisco's Public Radio Station, KQED. Thanks so much for this time and so early on what I know is going to be a long day for you. Thank you, thank you.

Marisa Lagos: My pleasure, Brian. Thanks for having me.

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