Butte County Democrats weigh in post-recall election

BUTTE COUNTY — Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s apparent victory over the recall election to replace him on Tuesday night, Butte County results point toward a split opinion among voters.

As of Wednesday morning, Butte County was reporting 100 percent of all votes counted for with 67,096 of 125,277 registered voters participating in the recall election. This accounts for 53.58 percent of registered voters in the county.

Votes to recall Newsom came in at 52.54 percent with those against the recall getting 47.46 percent of the vote. Of the candidates to replace Newsom if the recall was a success, Larry Elder received the majority of the votes within the county. Elder’s final total of votes was 22,983 votes, accounting for 51.08 percent.

Chair of Butte County Democrats James Aram said the results from Tuesday’s recall election has furthered his views on a division of political ideologies in Butte County.

“I think this whole thing has made me much more aware of the fragility of the political realm in the sense that it’s so close in this county,” Aram said. “In the presidential election, we actually voted for Biden. Audrey (Denney) made the best showing that any congressional candidate has made against (Doug) LaMalfa, but still it’s such a Republican district that it went for LaMalfa.”

The general election for U.S. House California District 1 took place Nov. 3 with the seat being retained by LaMalfa who received 57 percent of votes against Denney’s 43 percent.

Aram said the emotions in the political world have become incredibly high, saying he doesn’t see how things can return to a quieter time.

“I don’t know how we’re going to overcome this division that separates us in this country and apparently even in our own county, that people are feel so disenfranchised and so angry about the personal effects of COVID and the fires in their own lives that they’re willing to blame the governor for forestry practices that go back to the beginning of National Forest Service and beyond,” Aram said. “Newsom’s up for election next year. This is not how we govern. We don’t govern by recall. Recall’s were set up for a very specific purpose and that was to eliminate criminality from that top position in the government.”

As for voters, Aram said the turnout was not surprising — Butte County Democrats expected around 55 percent of registered party members to turn out.

“You know, you can’t get everybody that’s entitled to vote to exercise their civic responsibility and actually vote,” Aram said. “So it’s just about exactly what we anticipated. A couple of weeks ago, there was just not enough Democrats engaged in this election. But I think that Larry Elder stepped up and gave us all a good reason to get concerned about it.”

Calls to Butte County Republican party Chair Saulo Londono were not returned by deadline.