CALIFORNIA, USA — President Joe Biden will visit California on Monday to talk about wildfires and to campaign with California Gov. Gavin Newsom at a rally in opposition of the upcoming California gubernatorial recall election.
The President is scheduled to join Gov. Newsom in Long Beach on Monday, Sept. 13, one day before the recall election. Prior to the rally, President Biden will make a stop in Sacramento to survey recent wildfire damage.
Last week, Gov. Newsom got help on the campaign trail from Vice President Kamala Harris, who is from California. The Vice President urged voters to reject the recall during an appearance in the state Wednesday.
The California recall is the first major election since Joe Biden became president, and its results may hint at the political trajectory of the country.
Voters will have to decide whether to oust Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in Tuesday's recall election, and if so, who should replace him.
In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1, Newsom is seen as having the upper hand in his bid to fend off the GOP-fueled recall. A Berkeley IGS poll released late last week showed 60.1% of likely voters planning to vote no on the recall.
Republican talk show host Larry Elder is the leading replacement. But this unorthodox process has resulted in surprise before. It led to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor in 2003.
California Recall Fast Facts
On July 17, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber released a list of the 41 candidates who qualified to run in the recall election. About 70 candidates initially filed a statement of intent to run with the secretary of state, according to Ballotpedia.
On July 21, Weber signed off on the finalized list of candidates who'll appear on the recall ballot. The number grew to 46 after a judge ruled that candidates should not be required to submit tax forms for a recall election.
The final day for candidates to file paperwork to run in the recall election was July 16.
The final report from the Secretary of State's office, released on June 23, validated 1,719,943 signatures on the recall petition. The recall effort needed 1,495,709 verified signatures to trigger a recall election. Approximately 441,406 signatures were invalidated.
Only 43 people of the more than 1.7 million Californians who signed the recall petition chose to remove their name from the list.
On July 1, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis finalized the cost of the election at $276 million.
Read more about the California recall election here.
