California voters have given their approval to a significant overhaul of how the state handles recall elections, backing Proposition 5 in a race that stayed close through much of the count.
The measure, championed by Democratic leaders who said the existing system invited partisan mischief, will split recall elections into two separate votes. Instead of asking Californians in a single election whether to remove an official and who should take their place, the new process requires voters to first decide the removal question. Only if that vote succeeds would a second election be held to choose a replacement.
With roughly 91% of ballots tallied nine days after Election Day, support for Prop. 5 stood at about 52%, with 48% opposed.
State lawmakers placed the constitutional amendment before voters in 2024, contending that the old two-in-one format was confusing, expensive for taxpayers, and capable of producing results that didn’t reflect majority support, since a replacement candidate could win with only a small share of the vote. Republicans, meanwhile, have more frequently turned to recalls in recent years to target Democratic officeholders.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who weathered his own recall attempt in 2021, threw his support behind the change.
Support for the measure broke down largely along regional and political lines. Dense, Democratic-leaning counties such as San Francisco, Alameda and Los Angeles backed the overhaul comfortably, while more conservative, rural counties in Northern California, including El Dorado and Shasta, preferred to keep the existing rules in place.
The push for reform traces back to the costly and ultimately unsuccessful effort to oust Newsom four years ago. That recall campaign drained an estimated $200 million from state coffers, with another $100 million spent by campaigns on both sides of the fight. Newsom emerged largely unscathed, with 62% of voters choosing to keep him in the governor’s office. In the aftermath, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Democratic legislators began pressing for changes to the system.
The ballot measure stems from Senate Constitutional Amendment 1, approved by lawmakers in 2024 and carried by Democratic Sen. Josh Newman, who has personal experience with the process — he was recalled from his own Senate seat in 2018. Republican legislators opposed the amendment, arguing it was an unnecessary fix that would weaken voters’ influence and add the expense of running two separate elections instead of one.
Notably, the campaign around Prop. 5 drew none of the heavy spending seen in other ballot fights this cycle, including several tax-related measures that attracted multimillion-dollar efforts from outside groups.
Recall attempts are a regular occurrence in California politics, but few ever reach the ballot. Since 1913, only 11 recall efforts targeting statewide or legislative officials have made it to a vote, and just six of those succeeded. The most notable example remains the 2003 recall that removed Democratic Gov. Gray Davis from office and ushered in Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger under the system that voters have now decided to retire.
Original source: CalMatters
