How your Inland Empire city voted in the Gov. Gavin Newsom recall

Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s backers worried that fired-up voters who wanted to oust him would turn out in greater numbers than less-enthused voters who opposed the Sept. 14 recall.

Newsom easily survived the recall attempt, with 62% of voters statewide rejecting the effort to remove the Democrat from office before his term expires at the end of 2022.

But in the Inland Empire, the enthusiasm gap feared by Newsom’s supporters might have played a role in Riverside County being the largest county — and the only one in Southern California — to support the recall, according to a Southern California News Group analysis of certified election results from Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified the recall results Friday, Oct. 22.

Roughly 50.5% of Riverside County voters opted to recall the governor. “Yes” won by just 7,328 votes in a county with more than 1 million registered voters. “No” prevailed by 2,513 in San Bernardino County, where 50.2% of voters chose to retain Newsom.

In both counties, there was a clear pattern. Areas that strongly supported the recall had high turnout, while areas that strongly voted to keep Newsom tended to have much lower turnout.

Roughly 53.5% of registered voters turned out for the recall election in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with 50.2% of them voting to recall Newsom. Statewide turnout was 58.4%.

Where turnout was 60% or higher, 56.6% of voters wanted to recall the governor, precinct-level data shows. In precincts where turnout was 47% or lower, just 38% of voters supported the recall.

One exception was Palm Springs, where 80% voted against the recall — the strongest “No” vote of any city in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Palm Springs turnout was 71%, the region’s fourth-highest.

Those patterns, including the Palm Springs exception, aren’t unique. In both the 2020 presidential election and 2018 governor’s race that put Newsom in office, areas that supported the Republican candidates had higher turnout.

However, in 2020, there was less difference in turnout between more conservative and liberal areas — and Joe Biden won both Inland counties by several percentage points.

While the precincts with higher turnout tended to support the recall, those also tended to be places with higher numbers of Republican voters, said Renee Van Vechten, a political science professor at the University of Redlands.

Statewide, Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly 2-to-1 in voter registration, and Democratic voters outnumber GOP voters in the Inland Empire. Even if a higher percentage of Republicans cast ballots, Democrats can still win statewide contests with a lower-percentage turnout because there’s more of them, Van Vechten said.

GOP enthusiasm might be more influential in local elections such as those taking place next month, Van Vechten added. If Republicans can motivate their voters in GOP-friendly areas, “that’s where you could see them winning seats,” she said.

Newsom had slightly less Inland support in the recall compared to 2018. Three years ago, Newsom won San Bernardino County with 51.5% of the vote. Last month, 50.2% of county voters rejected the recall.

Newsom lost Riverside County in 2018 with 49.8% of the vote. That percentage slipped a bit in the recall, with 49.5% of voters wanting to keep him around.

Even so, he gained support in 25 of the region’s 52 cities.

Seventeen were cities that voted against Newsom in 2018 and 2021, but were less opposed to him this year, including Banning, Beaumont, Big Bear Lake, Calimesa, Chino Hills, Hemet, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Murrieta and Temecula.

Newsom managed to flip three cities. Palm Desert, Redlands and Upland voted narrowly against him in 2018 but narrowly against the recall this year. One other city flipped the other way: Highland was for Newsom in 2018 but just barely voted in favor of recalling him.

Another 17 cities voted for Newsom both times, but with smaller margins in 2018. Topping that list were Coachella, Eastvale, Fontana, Jurupa Valley, Montclair and Perris.

During the recall campaign, Newsom urged Californians to vote “No” on Question One — Should the governor be recalled? — but leave Question Two — Who should replace Newsom if he’s recalled? — blank.

Many voters appear to have listened. Statewide, 12.8 million voters answered the first question while fewer than 7.4 million voters answered the second question.

The gap wasn’t quite as big in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, but about 35% fewer voters in both counties answered Question Two compared to Question One.