Talk:2021 California gubernatorial recall election/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Newsom's performance as governor

To avoid trial by edit war, let's discuss this here.

The diff in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2021_California_gubernatorial_recall_election&oldid=1049266174

I prefer to differentiate between the two. Newsom's performance as governor is not just the pandemic. It's sending $30+ billion to crooks with his incompetent leadership that took too long to do proper identity verification (imagine if Apple, a ~$300 billion/yr enterprise like the state govt of CA is, lost $30 billion just like that. Tim Cook would be in the unemployment line tomorrow, ironically there would be $30 billion missing from the pot of benefits he could collect from, but I digress...)

Newsom's performance as governor includes the pandemic, but it includes unemployment fraud, stating falsehoods about what has done to deal with fire preparation (see the CapRadio investigation, where he overstated work by 690 percent). It includes disenfranchising CA's electorate by not opting to pick a replacement for Harris last month, instead now we are electing a senator for a 2 month term next November.

The pandemic strategy of Newsom vs. Elder doesn't even include some pandemic-adjacent issues. How he still has emergency powers. How those powers have benefited those with influence at the capitol (teacher unions, big business, etc.) who got massive no bid contracts or a de facto sabbatical with full pay while students suffered. Etc.

We need to allude to his performance as governor. At some point, the polls were within the margin of error. The blue ruling party went all out in a deep blue state. This recall was multifaceted, and this article is obligated to cover it comprehensively. 2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 21:30, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to add, the calmatters article in question clearly states that his campaigning sought to make it a referendum on elder/newsom and their policies, rather than on his performance as governor. See the sentence I quoted in one of my edit summaries. So in the end, I'm advocating for a clear transposition of what has been stated in a reliable source. Hardly talk page discussion material, but here I am. 2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Your one sentence Newsom's performance as governor is not just the pandemic says it all. It says that you agree that the pandemic is part of his performance as governor. It is therefore misleading to write "rather than as a referendum on his performance as governor", as the two are not mutually exclusive. Banana Republic (talk) 21:48, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

My presumption is that Newsom/Elder referendum would be future-looking, while Newsom's performance as governor happened in the past. So I did think they were mutually exclusive. I thought this temporality was implicit. Yes, Newsom's future covid policies would be a continuation of past ones, but I am thinking voters were considering how they wanted the next year of their life to look like by comparing newsom/elder. Both Newsom and Elder sent voters a cover letter but voters also had access to Newsom's transcript. Basically. Then they did a background check on Elder, lol. 2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 22:00, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

The source says:

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly two-to-one, Newsom always had a mathematical advantage. The question was whether Democrats would be motivated to vote. It looked iffy earlier this summer, but Newsom woke them up by hammering a highly partisan, fear-based message about how his leading Republican opponent would manage the pandemic. He succeeded in making the race seem like a choice between himself and conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, rather than a referendum on his own performance as governor.

It's somewhat ambiguous. Your interpretation is somewhat contradictory, as you are implying Newsom won by focusing voters on his pandemic cred (past and future..) versus Elder, and distracted voters from...his pandemic record? My interpretation is "his own performance" is everything from the past, and the referendum was on his pandemic proposals versus Elder's proposals for October 2021-Jan 2023. 2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 22:27, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I am proposing this: "Newsom ultimately defeated the recall with a margin of roughly 24 percent after mobilizing Democrats to vote with a message that framed the race as a referendum on him versus Elder and their pandemic policy proposals, rather than as a referendum on his prior performance as governor." The source says how his opponent "would manage the pandemic". That explicitly says campaigning on Elder was forward-looking. Please tell me if you disagree that "performance" heavily implies the past. I understand your redundancy argument, but I'm not seeing its relevance here. "Performance" is clearly implied to be in the past in this case.

You're not obligated to refute every single one of my points, but if you're going to revert like you did with that rationale, I am owed a better explanation of your interpretation of what is in this source. Otherwise, I think my edit should be restored, because I don't really think you have a strong argument here. 2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

I oppose the insertion of the fragment rather than as a referendum on his prior performance as governor. The COVID policies are part of his prior performance as governor. The pandemic has been raging for 18 months at the time of the recall, so saying that Newsom framed the campaign issues on COVID, "rather than a referendum on his prior performance as governor" doesn't makes any sense. Banana Republic (talk) 00:53, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I still disagree with your interpretation, but I don't think the effect of the omission is really all that great, so I guess that's that. The wikipedia article has enough information about Newsom's leadership to make it obvious his record was, in the view of many, tarnished. I just don't think it should be all that controversial to simply paraphrase what's been written by what appears to be just a middle-of-the-road journalist. If Newsom succeeded in focusing the narrative from him onto Elder & co, Elder & co failed in maintaining the focus on Newsom's record. All is fair in love/war, except Newsom had tens of millions of dollars at his disposal (no limits), while challengers could only raise $32,400 per donor. Onto 2022, I guess. Cheers.2600:1012:B067:7B26:49D3:A68A:B29B:5007 (talk) 01:20, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Final Map Update

All of the votes have been counted according to the SoS. Now would be a great time to give the maps a final update. I believe only Lake County needs a different shading. Scribetastic (talk) 16:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Qualified Candidates section

Are we going to only have candidates in the table in the qualified candidates section that got 1%+ of the vote, like we did for the 2003 recall article? If so, we would have to rename the section. Also, are funds raised not important at this stage? Should we remove it/replace with/add the vote totals instead? What about the declined section? The 2003 article doesn't have one, should we get rid of ours, or should we leave notable candidates that declined (e.g. the lieutenant governor)? Prcc27 (talk) 17:15, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Any significant final "funds raised" for challengers can be covered in the "fundraising" section in a single sentence. "Funds raised" is, according to some editors here (you? I forget), not according to precedent. This article is rated "C" and given the collaborative work done here, it deserves better, and maybe we should play hardball with needed changes like that. If you think major changes are needed with the table to be consistent with precedent, I say go for it. 2600:1012:B045:2BEA:5DBB:7E5:ABDB:D880 (talk) 18:38, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree that the articles candidate listings need work, but 1% is too arbitrary of a cutoff. The cutoff should really be chosen by a large ratio between a candidate and the next candidate below, ordered by vote count. If we're being honest, Larry Elder is the only candidate that played any significant role in the election over most of the course of the campaign season; after that it's the ratio between Joe M. Symmon and the write-in candidates below him. Keeping in mind that more candidates should be given due weight on the page, it may make sense to impose content restrictions on the rows for the lower candidates, such as no pictures or a limit to the "prior positions" description, but it wouldn't serve the article to remove them entirely at the arbitrary cutoff. Dhalsim2 (talk) 01:41, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• Coincidentally enough, I don't think the cutoff is all that arbitrary. Caitlyn Jenner got significant news coverage, and I don't think many/any of the candidates that got less votes than her got significant coverage, except for maybe Doug Ose (he dropped out of the race). Strongly against removing candidates because they don't have a picture. The obvious solution to that would be to add pictures for the candidates in the table that don't yet have one. Even if some of the candidates that got less than 1% vote had significant coverage pre-election, I think the post-election results are what we should give due weight to. In the end, the official results are all that matter. Prcc27 (talk) 02:05, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

If 1%+ is too arbitrary, maybe we could have a 5%+ cutoff (which is what we use for the infobox). Prcc27 (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

@Prcc27:, I agree with most of what you said; I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't suggesting that removing a candidate because of a lack of pictures was a good course of action. That would be really dumb, because as you say, it would be better to just add the pictures. What I was saying was that the candidates with lower result counts should still be on the list, but that if due weight is the concern, they can take up less of the page than the higher candidates. This could be accomplished by content reduction (removal of pictures and shortening of text), or it could be done by separating them into two tables and collapsing the second table by default. See Third party and independent candidates for the 2020 United States presidential election#Summary as an example of a two-table solution. The 1% cutoff is very arbitrary because though Jenner received a good deal of coverage at the very beginning of the campaign, that coverage tanked early on. McGowan, Ventresca, Watts, Baade, Kilpatrick, and Perez-Serrato received a small fraction of what Jenner received. A more reasonable cutoff would be with Kevin Kiley. So perhaps Elder through Kiley should keep their content as-is, and those below Kiley should have pictures removed but their names kept on the list (if concern is over page space). What do you think?

• I don't think the candidates with lower vote totals need to be included in that section. How does it improve the article? They are already included in the results section. We could have two tables with the second table being collapsible, but tbh, I just don't think it's necessary. Whatever we do, I would want it to be consistent with the 2003 article. I am against having Kevin Kiley as the cutoff, and disagree with the notion that he is a less arbitrary cutoff. I also am against judging a candidate's viability based on pre-election coverage instead of by their post-election raw vote totals. Prcc27 (talk) 03:50, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your argument as it seems inconsistent to me. You were saying that Jenner should be included because of the pre-election coverage involved, but now you're saying that post-election results trump pre-election coverage. I personally agree with your statement that post-election results are most important at this stage in the article, but that's why I feel that 1% is arbitrary. The difference in votes between Jenner and Drake isn't very significant. More so, it seems that in the post-election period, this whole article section seems largely redundant with the results section. Wouldn't it make more sense to combine the two sections? Dhalsim2 (talk) 17:50, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
  • My argument wasn't that Jenner should be included because of her pre-election coverage. My argument was that the 1% threshold *coincidentally* seems to not be that arbitrary given Jenner's coverage. Regardless of her coverage, the main reason I went with 1% is because that's what the 2003 article goes with. If we want a less arbitrary cutoff, 5% would be the way to go, since that's usually the cutoff on Wikipedia election articles for who's considered "viable". Prcc27 (talk) 20:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Ok, thanks for clarifying that. However, I believe that you're mistaken on the 2003 cutoff. It's not 5% but 0.5%, with the remainder in a collapsed table. If that's applied toward this article, that puts the threshold at Angelyne and above, which would seem more reasonable to me. I'm not arguing for arguments sake or have any particular candidate that I'm trying to be favorable towards; I'm just advocating for high information density with due weight. The 0.5% 2003 precedent seems reasonable. We should also keep in mind that decisions of the past are weighty but changeable. How would you feel about a 0.5% cutoff? Dhalsim2 (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Or if you want to be mathematically precise, Angelyne has 0.48767% of the vote, less than 0.5%, so if you want to cut it off at Ted Gaines, that's reasonable too. Dhalsim2 (talk) 01:09, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

• No, that's the cutoff for the results section. The cutoff for the Top candidates section is 1%. Prcc27 (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

• Ok. I must have previously missed that. I concede that you're right.

Virginia election endorsement tables

Perhaps this is a case of wanting to "keep up with the Joneses", but I like how the endorsement tables for 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election are organized; it would save a lot of space. Is anyone opposed to this change? 2600:1012:B00A:986A:9C2F:4C98:36DD:E3B5 (talk) 04:21, 4 November 2021 (UTC)