‘Get worried’: Gavin Newsom’s supporters are trying to bridge an enthusiasm gap by pumping up the fear

The people who answered their doors knew about the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, but only with the vague awareness that comes from scrolling past a post on social media or spotting an advertisement on TV.

Even though they leaned toward keeping him, their feelings about the first-term Democrat didn’t seem strong, and most had no idea that their ballots would be arriving imminently, with less than a month to return them before the Sept. 14 election.

So on a recent Saturday morning, as Jennifer Shanoski canvassed the blocks of an Oakland neighborhood near Brookdale Park, knocking on the doors of union households, her goal was to remind them — no, it was much more urgent than that — scare them into voting against the recall.

“The Republican Party is trying to take over our governor position and we’re really concerned about what that will do to the minimum wage, to workers’ rights, to the right to unionize,” Shanoski, a community college chemistry professor and president of the Peralta Federation of Teachers, told a janitor at one home.

As county elections officials finish sending out mail ballots to every registered voter in California, the campaign to prevent Newsom from being removed from office before the end of his term is increasingly driven by a strategy of instilling fear — fear that he could lose, fear of the consequences if he does, fear that voters aren’t engaged enough to care. Read more >>>