Add Category
"We agonized about the sacrifices it would require," Newsom said of the stay-at-home order. "We made sure that science -- not politics -- drove our decisions."
Though his orders throughout the last year sparked anger and helped fuel the energy among Republicans to remove him from office, he said that "it was the right thing to do."
"People are alive today because of the public health decisions we made -- lives saved because of your sacrifice," he said. "Even so, I acknowledge it's made life hard and unpredictable, and you're exhausted by all of it."
Newsom, who was elected in 2018 with 62% of the vote, promised that "the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter than ever," noting that the state's coronavirus case positivity rate has dropped to 2.1% and officials have administered 11 million vaccine shots in a state of 40 million people (including second doses). He asked the state's residents to stand with him "resolved to make it to brighter days ahead -- to not let the pain of last year deter the hopefulness of tomorrow."
Recall proponents plan to collect about 2 million signatures before the deadline to account for duplicates or invalid submissions. In the most recent update issued by the Secretary of State's office, officials reported that nearly 1.1 million signatures had been submitted by February 5. Of those, county officials had completed the verification process on about 798,310 signatures and more than 668,168 -- or 83.7% -- were deemed valid.
If a recall election qualifies for the ballot, the state's voters will be asked to vote yes or no on removing Newsom from office, and then to answer a second question about who they want to see replace him as governor.
About 52% of likely California voters approve of Newsom's job performance, according to a January poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, a dip from last May, when his approval rating had risen to 64% in the same survey.
Newsom implicitly addressed the recall in his remarks, stating that he would not "change course just because of a few nay-sayers and dooms-dayers."
"To the California critics, who are promoting partisan political power grabs and outdated prejudices, and rejecting everything that makes California great, we say this: We will not be distracted from getting shots in arms and our economy booming again," he said. "This is a fight for California's future."