Last month, I mentioned three elections scheduled for September. One of them — Germany scheduled for tomorrow — is a regular election at the expiration of the current parliamentary term. Two of them were not. In California, Republicans, thinking that his COVID policies made Governor Gavin Newsom vulnerable, pushed through a recall petition to force a recall election. In Canada, the governing Liberal Party, thought that favorable polls gave them a chance of turning their plurality into an actual majority.
The votes are now in. And both elections were a wash that mostly maintained the status quo.
In California, while early polls seemed to show a chance for the recall to succeed, the current vote totals are similar to the results of recent elections. With approximately 12.5 million votes counted (and only around 450,000 votes remaining to be counted), slightly over 62% of the votes are against the recall. The current counted votes are very similar to the final count from the 2018 election with the “no” votes being approximately 60,000 more votes that Governor Newsom got in 2018 and the “yes” votes being approximately 20,000 fewer votes than the Republican candidate got in 2018.
There is a lot of speculation about why the early polls ended up being wrong. One aspect may be California’s current election system in which every voter received mail-in ballots. Likely voter screens for polls try to measure engagement to determine who will vote, but the ease of voting means that less engaged people will vote. Second, unlike in 2003 when Governor Gray Davis seemed likely to be recalled and Democrats tried to get a “safety net” replacement candidate, there were no established Democrats running as a replacement candidate. As a result Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters may have considered voting for the recall but switched back after seeing no good potential replacement. Third, and closely related to the second, the Republican base has fallen off the deep end. By the end of the election (based on the totals on the replacement ballot), it seems like most of the Republicans who voted opted for Trumpist candidate Larry Elder rather than one of the more mainstream candidates. (His vote totals on the replacement candidate ballot represent about two-thirds of the “yes” vote on the recall candidate.) To some degree, the fact that the likely replacement was so far from the center of California politics probably contributed to undecided voters breaking against recall and some soft pro-recall voters switching.
The fact that the Republican base is so far out of touch with the rest of the country may play a role in the 2022 election. There are several states (and congressional districts) that currently look like tossups. If the Republicans decide to nominate ultra-conservatives for these races, it may make it easier for Democrats to hold their majorities (and perhaps even gain seats). Even in some reddish states, Republican candidates for open seats are running so far to the right that they door might be open for a Democrat to win the election.
In Canada, as in several other parliamentary system, the law allows the Prime Minister to request an early election. While the full term for Canada is approximately four years (actually the October that is four years after the last election year), the 2019 election resulted in the Liberals winning 157 out of 338 seats. With polls showing the Liberals making gains, the Liberal Party opted to call an early election. Of course, as the campaign started, voters began taking a close look at the parties and the race tightened. At some points in the campaign, it looked like the Conservatives would actually win the most seats. While there are still some mail-in votes being counted in approximately ten districts (with the formal certification process to follow and at least one recount), the final count looks very similar to 2019. Both of the two leading parties saw a slight decline in their percentage (less than 1 percent) from 2019. In total, only 23 seats flipped and there was no consistent trend in the flips. At the end of the day, the Liberals gained two seats from 2019 (one of which was a “hold” by an incumbent who had switched from Green to Liberal since being elected in 2019), the Conservatives lost two seats from 2019, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats gained one seat each from 2019, the Green Party lost one seat, and the number of independents dropped by one. (The one guaranteed recount is currently a 24 vote lead for the Conservative candidate over the Liberal candidate.) So the net result will be a very tiny gain for the Liberals but they did not achieve their goal of a majority.
In short, both elections showed a setting in of partisan divisions. There was a slight shift rightward (around 3%) in Canada, but the majority of the Canadian vote is still overwhelmingly progressive (the top four progressive parties totaled 60.4% compared to 38.7% for the two main conservative parties). And the votes in California showed only a slight shift leftward from 2018. In neither case did the folks behind the early election gain their goal.
The expectation is that tomorrow’s vote in Germany will be different, but that is largely due to the retirement of Angela Merkel. Leadership ultimately does matter and a strong leader can bring swing voters to a party. So there will be some people who voted for the “Union” candidate (Merkel’s party is actually two parties — the Christian Democratic Union which runs in all of the German states other than Bavaria and the Christian Social Union which runs in Bavaria) in the last election because they wanted Merkel as Chancellor who will voter for one of the other parties this time. Like in Canada, the sheer number of significant parties running makes it hard for any party to get a majority (with it being almost impossible in Germany). Unlike in Canada, the German system requires an actual coalition government. Thus, it might be a month or more before we know who will be the next Chancellor. (It took over four months after the 2017 election.)
