Biden to travel to California ‘early next week’ to campaign for Newsom ahead of recall vote

By Kate Sullivan and Betsy Klein, CNN

President Joe Biden will travel to California “early next week” to campaign for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead of the September 14 recall election, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

Newsom is attempting to stave off a Republican-backed effort to oust him, which is motivated in part by anger toward his pandemic restrictions. Biden’s visit would come in the final hours of an election in which most of the voting is expected to be done by mail.

Psaki said more details on the trip would be released by the White House later on Tuesday.

Vice President Kamala Harris will also travel to her home state this week to campaign for Newsom. Other high-profile Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have also stumped for the governor in recent days.

Harris’ trip, which is now taking place on Wednesday, was previously postponed following the terrorist attack that killed 13 and wounded 18 US service members in Afghanistan.

CNN’s Harry Enten reported last week that the chance of Newsom getting recalled was declining. The latest polls, Enten reported, showed an increasing percentage of voters saying they would vote “no” on the recall. But Enten noted there was the possibility that the race could tighten.

Every registered voter in California was sent a ballot in the mail for the recall election. Early returns have been coming more from Democrats, but they outnumber Republicans 2-1 in the state and Republicans may be waiting to vote on Election Day.

The effort to oust Newsom, who was elected in 2018, was launched last year by a group of conservative Republicans who opposed the governor on a number of issues, including immigration, taxes, the death penalty and the state’s homelessness crisis. But the effort gained traction late last year following Newsom’s stay-at-home orders and other restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Newsom also came under fire when he attended a friend’s birthday party at a lavish French restaurant in Napa Valley as he was urging people in California to stay home and avoid large gatherings with multiple households. Newsom apologized and called the dinner “a bad mistake,” but it was widely perceived as hypocritical and out of touch.

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CNN’s Maeve Reston and Zachary B. Wolf contributed to this report.