Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday easily survived a statewide effort to have him removed from office, as an overwhelming majority of Californians voted not to recall him.
For the “Big Three” networks, Newsom’s decisive victory is a referendum not only on his leadership but also on his policies. However, as Scott Whitlock reminds us, the same networks had the exact opposite reaction when former Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker handily defeated his recall challenger in 2012.
“I think about just in the last few days, the former president [was] saying this election was rigged,” the victorious Newsom said this week in a victory speech. “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 into 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.”
He added, “I said this many, many times on the campaign trail: We may have defeated Trump, but Trumpism is not dead in this country.”
The California governor’s triumph this week implies several things, all of which are positive, declared the major networks.
“The governor told me he’d made mistakes,” CBS News’s Major Garrett said following Newsom’s victory. “But now he has something other elected officials don’t have: vindication. This recall election, in the end, was a referendum on his pandemic policies, and the result was a blowout.”
He’s not wrong about the “blowout” part. The early tallies (they are sure to tighten) suggest Californians voted 63% to 36% not to recall the governor.
At ABC News, anchor George Stephanopoulos announced the news from California, saying, “Recall rejected. California Gov. Gavin Newsom survives the Republican-backed attempt to kick him out of office.”
“The victory seemed a resounding affirmation of the COVID restrictions that led to the recall in the first place,” said ABC reporter Matt Gutman.
He added, “Newsom’s strict COVID policies have worked and that, George, they have been popular.”
Then, there’s NBC News, where co-host Savannah Guthrie said the results of the failed recall effort are “being seen as a win for Democrats on the national stage heading into next year’s midterm elections.”
“The governor called it humbling,” said NBC reporter Jacob Soboroff. “A validation of his leadership, allowing him to continue to lead the most populous state in the union.”
This commentary is a long way from how the same networks handled Walker’s recall victory in 2012.
At NBC, before he was demoted to MSNBC for lying about covering active war zones, anchor Brian Williams said of Walker’s victory that “money flowed into that state from all over the country, from people who had never been to Wisconsin, had no connection to Wisconsin.”
He added, “Part of the new and unlimited spending that is changing politics in a hurry.”
At CBS News, anchor Scott Pelley groused of Walker’s victory, “The Wisconsin battle also was a preview of how much money is changing politics these days. Donations flooded in to the state on both sides.”
He added, “The recall election may have cost more than $75 million, and about half of that came from outside Wisconsin. A lot of it from wealthy individuals.”
For the record, the cost of the recall election in California may be as much as $300 million, according to state officials. The networks have expressed no similar concern about how money flowed to Newsom’s coffers.
Lastly, as Whitlock reminds us, MSNBC was, of course, apoplectic that Walker defeated his recall challenger 53% to 46%.
“To say that I’m shocked and stunned is pretty much an understatement,” said the late Ed Schultz. “But I also think that it is a real warning to Americans that money is now infiltrated into our political system like we have never seen before, and the ruling by Citizens United is now a real message to every American.”
Fast forward to 2021, and the tune is very different. A governor surviving a recall election has nothing to do with “dark money” or unaccountable donations. It actually proves the governor and his policies are popular, even if the state keeps losing its population to other states.
The change in tone probably has nothing to do with the respective political affiliations of the two governors. It’s probably a total coincidence the “Big Three” networks now see a governor surviving a recall election as an endorsement of his policies, even though they claimed the exact opposite when it was a Republican governor in the hot seat.
