Below is a report I wrote analyzing the 2021 CA gubernatorial recall election. I am keeping it here completely unmodified from how it appeared shortly before election day. After Newsom completes his term it may be worth going back and checking what I got right or wrong.
For the best expected impact on total welfare, vote "no" on recalling Gavin Newsom, and vote Kevin Paffrath as the potential replacement. The election will be held on September 14. See the scoring model here.
This is an evaluation of ballot choices in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election. For this election, Californians must simultaneously pick whether to recall Governor Gavin Newsom and pick which challenger they would most prefer to replace him (everyone can vote for a challenger even if they vote 'no' on recall). I judge the major candidates (Gavin Newsom, Larry Elder, Kevin Paffrath and Kevin Faulconer) against the criteria in my Policy Platform, which sets the best policies for maximizing long-run global welfare.
Sometimes it is not clear what a candidate believes on a particular topic; in those cases I give them the average scores for their political parties.
The issue weights from my policy platform are updated here for the specific responsibilities of the governor of California. The updated weights are: air pollution 7.7 (lowered 20% because California is already pretty liberal), animal welfare 23.1 (lowered 20% because California is already pretty liberal), criminal justice 6.9 (raised 50% as states have high influence, but not too high because California is already pretty liberal), education 4.3, government 3.8 (lowered 75% because there is little at issue for California), ground/water pollution 4.8 (lowered 20% because California is already pretty liberal), guns 1.0, healthcare 6.4 (raised 40% because of COVID-19), housing 15.1 (raised 180% because of California's housing crisis and the significant role of state government), infrastructure 7.1 (raised 70% because of California's need for transit-oriented urbanism to help remedy its housing crisis), labor 5.8 (raised 60% because of AB 5), occupational licensing 3.1 (raised 30%), poverty relief 4.7, and taxation 3.9. Other issues from the policy platform are excluded as being irrelevant here.
I also add a special scoring criterion for Senate appointment. The next governor may have to appoint a replacement for Senator Feinstein, who may die or retire before the end of this gubernatorial term. In expectation, the winner of this gubernatorial recall election will make appointments for 0.37 Senate-seat-years, 0.13 of which will be tiebreaking. We must compare the importance of this against the importance of actually running the gubernatorial office for 1.4 years.
This comparison is fairly straightforward because California's gubernatorial office and Senate seat are both mainly important for domestic policy. On one hand, we have all the responsibilities of running the state of California; on the other hand, we have Senate budget reconciliation to handle all taxation and spending, plus a (quite small) chance that Senate Democrats manage to repeal the filibuster. The Senate affects 8x more Americans than California, but the duration of the remaining gubernatorial term is 11x longer than the expected tiebreaking time. Filibuster repeal may be more important than the battles over budget reconciliation, but it seems very unlikely to succeed regardless of what happens in California. We should also give a little extra weight to the Senate based on its authority in foreign policy, but senators usually don't fall along neat partisan lines in foreign policy, so it must take a back seat to domestic issues when the Senate is nearly tied. Additionally, often it's not even clear which kinds of senators are better at foreign policy. Finally, a Senate appointment could have large long-run effects. While California will presumably have two Democratic senators no matter what after 2024, the selection of a particular Democrat to replace Feinstein matters a great deal because he or she will have a strong incumbency advantage and will probably occupy the same seat for decades. In fact, this long-run impact may be just as important as shifting party seats over the next few years, but it is much harder to predict in advance - we know which governors will appoint senators from which party, but we don't know which governors will appoint senators who are particularly good or bad compared to other members of their party.
Taking all this into consideration, I would say that Senate appointments matter nearly as much as actually running the state. The sum of the weights of all the other policy issues is 97, so I give Senate appointments a weight of 80.
Normally, I weight fitness for office 35% as much as the sum of all other policy issues, the intuition being that generally good leadership is important for solving all kinds of issues. However, it would be inappropriate to do that here because the high weight of Senate appointment would increase the weight assigned to fitness for office to an absurd degree. While fitness for office presumably matters for appointing a good senator, I don't think it matters that much. Senate appointment is a relatively simple decision which does not require a great deal of managerial skill or moral fiber. Therefore, I give fitness for office a weight equivalent to 35% of all the internal policy issues plus 15% of the weight of Senate appointment (total of 46.2).
Newsom signed an executive order to ban gasoline car sales by 2035. This seems like a purely symbolic gesture, but I think it does help coordinate a mutual expectation for timely transition - so charging station builders will plan for more electric cars, the power grid will plan for more demand, battery makers will plan to sell more, etc. More practically, Newsom is changing the state's electric car rebate program to better target low-income buyers. He allowed a commission to study the possibility of mining lithium in the Salton Sea. I give him 2 points.
Elder used to deny climate change entirely. He has slightly moderated to say that it's real but suggested that humans aren't contributing to it, and he seems to believe that it is not harmful. On his campaign website, he claims that Newsom is "surrounded by an army of radicals for whom climate change is a religion". While he theoretically might nonetheless support pollution reduction for health reasons, and might start promoting moderate policies for this campaign, he is clearly not responsible on this issue. In the words of one informed person, Elder "is still skeptical of taking any action to avoid negative impacts from climate change". I give him -2 points.
Paffrath supports a green energy transition. He wants it to be moderately paced with interim use of natural gas peaker plants, which is inevitable, but his openness in saying it suggests that he's a bit less aggressive on green energy. He supports a carbon tax. I give him 1.6 points.
As mayor of San Diego, Faulconer pushed serious green energy efforts. The director of a climate nonprofit said that Faulconer didn't push aggressively enough, but environmentalists might say this about any politician, and could be biased to disproportionately criticize Republicans, so it doesn't really mean anything. I give Faulconer 1.8 points.
Newsom has promoted animal welfare, but this only addressed marginal and somewhat debatable issues like circuses and hunting. Newsom seems to have ignored factory farming, despite a 50k-signature petition asking him to take action. Overall, I give him 1.3 points.
Elder is a Republican, and is quite ideologically conservative on social and moral issues. I give him -1.8 points.
Paffrath is a Democrat but doesn't seem ideologically progressive. I give him 0 points.
Faulconer is a Republican, but relatively moderate. I give him -0.5 points.
Elder supports cash bail (without promoting reform like progressive bail), opposes early prisoner release under COVID and complains about demonization of police officers. I give him -1.5 points.
Faulconer established 'smart streetlights' that can be used to catch criminals, although he later had to temporarily turn them off and wait for the city government to establish a proper ordnance for using them. I give him -0.2 points.
I give Democrats 0.7 points per the average for their party.
Newsom is overly deferential to teachers' unions, as evidenced by his approach to school reopenings during COVID-19: "governors in Oregon and Washington this month issued executive orders mandating that schools reopen. Newsom declined to go that route, preferring instead to dangle $2 billion in incentives as part of a compromise with teachers unions — a move that has still left many students at home". However, later he did become the first governor to mandate that teachers and staff get COVID-19 vaccinations or regular tests. I give him -2.2 points.
Elder opposes the demands of teachers' unions, will fight for charter schools and opposes taxpayer funding for schools which teach children the divisive ideas suggested by critical race theory. I give him 2.1 points.
Paffrath heavily supports vocational education with some ambitious plans for "Future Schools" and dodged a question in a Fox interview asking if he would ban Critical Race Theory from schools. I give him 2.5 points.
I give Faulconer 2.2 points as is typical for a Republican.
I give Newsom 2.2 points as is typical for a Democrat.
Elder endorsed Trump for reelection and alleged substantial irregularities in the 2020 presidential election. I give him -2 points.
Faulconer did not vote for Trump in 2016, but he did vote for Trump in 2020, suggesting tolerance of Trump's misdemeanors that were cited in the impeachment proceedings. He seems to have been completely silent during Republican efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. I give him -0.5 points.
Paffrath is a Democrat, but not very partisan or ideological about it. He's also a bit of a populist. I give him 1.5 points.
I give Newsom 1.5 points as is typical for a Democrat.
I give Elder -1.5 points, as is typical for a Republican.
I give Paffrath 1 point, I wouldn't trust him as much as Newsom to go after environmental issues that aren't highlighted by popular culture.
I give Faulconer 0 points, as he is a Republican but a moderate one.
Newsom has vocally defended California's assault weapons ban, but this law seems to be ineffective. I give him 0.5 points.
I give Elder -1 point, as is typical for a Republican.
I give Paffrath 0 points based on his apparent ideology and character, I doubt he will go after guns.
I give Faulconer -1 point as is typical for a Republican.
Newsom expanded Medi-Cal to undocumented people aged 19-25. He has run COVID-19 vaccine lotteries and became the first governor to mandate vaccinations or COVID-19 tests for school teachers and staff. I give him 1.6 points.
Elder seems fairly moderate and reasonable about health insurance, but he wants to reduce benefits accessed by undocumented workers and would presumably oppose giving them health insurance coverage. He supported a First Doses First strategy to COVID19 vaccination. However, he wants to "repeal mandates requiring state workers to get the coronavirus vaccine or face regular testing". He has said that he's vaccinated, but also promoted vaccine conspiracies on his show. I give him 0 points.
Paffrath supports public messaging to teach people about the superiority of surgical masks and N95 masks over ersatz cloth masks and regulations to make businesses install better air ventilation as a condition for opening up (now obsolete, but generally a good idea). He doesn't say anything substantial about promoting COVID-19 vaccination, just saying that it should be 'optional'. I give Paffrath 1.4 points.
I give Faulconer 0 points, as he is a Republican but a moderate one.
Newsom has an approximately YIMBY stance, and he has taken actions such as creating an accountability unit to enforce laws to allow new housing. However, his leadership on the subject is best described as feckless. He has failed to mobilize Democratic legislators effectively. And when SB 1120 missed the voting deadline at the end of the 2020 legislative session, a failure caused by irresponsible procedural obstruction from certain legislators, Newsom indefensibly declined to call the legislature to an extended session to get the bill passed. I give him 1.3 points.
Elder wants more growth and development to lower the cost of housing. He opposes SB9, the legislation that would end single-family-only zoning, saying that localities should decide rather than the state. Given his right-wing ideology, he may oppose homeless housing programs, which (at least in Los Angeles) have benefits exceeding costs. I give him 0.2 points.
Paffrath seems to have decent views on housing, as he has significant and specific ambitions to simplify the permitting process for new housing, but in one of his videos he said that he didn't want to make cities much denser, citing traffic. I give him 1.2 points.
Faulconer has a very good approach to housing and self-identifies as YIMBY. As mayor, he achieved true, surprising progress on parking and upzoning. He also praised new R&D development.
In the words of one informed person, "he seems to have made the calculation both in SD and in the Governor race that YIMBYism cannot touch single family zoning. He exempted single family zoning in his SD housing package. That is unfortunate, for sure, but I think Faulconer would still be very open to getting things done."
I give Faulconer 2.7 points.
Newsom signed a good executive order on transit. He has overseen the controversial California High-Speed Rail project. I give him 0.5 points.
Elder opposes large public spending programs on infrastructure and supports repealing the Davis-Bacon Act in order to control infrastructure costs. I give him 0.5 points.
Paffrath only seems to care about cars compared to other forms of transportation. He supports private construction of toll roads, and seems to want them to only run parallel to existing freeways, apparently based on the silly premise that this makes them 'optional' as opposed to toll roads which run to alternative routes (which are, uh, mandatory?). He wants to cancel the high-speed rail project and replace it with tunnels (he mentions the Boring Company and cites Musk's overly optimistic cost estimates for this, which is obviously flawed, but if he becomes governor then of course his administration will have a more serious planning process). Anyway, private toll road construction, HSR cancellation, and tunnel construction might be justified but the lack of any apparent interest in light rail and bus routes is a big problem. Paffrath's emphasis on lowering the cost of infrastructure construction is commendable, but it's unclear whether he will figure out how to address it. I give him -0.6 points.
Faulconer is a YIMBY, which suggests good views on mass transit. I give him 1 point.
Newsom signed the AB 5 law for gig workers. I give him -1.5 points.
Elder opposed AB 5. I give him 1 point.
Paffrath supports anticompetitive measures to keep workers and businesses in California instead of other states. I give him -0.9 points.
Faulconer is a Republican, but a moderate one. He asked courts to intervene to allow Uber and Lyft to continue operating for some time following the passage of AB 5. He may have tried too hard to entice the Chargers sports team to stay in San Diego. I give him 0.8 points.
I give Newsom -0.1 points as is typical for a Democrat.
Elder is presumably against strict occupational licensing, as he is a reasonably consistent libertarian on economic issues. I give him 1 point.
Paffrath supports simpler, laxer occupational licensing rules. Specifically, he wants to open up handyman licensing and create a special kind of simpler legal license for small claims cases. He also wants to legalize gambling, saying that it would raise tax revenue. I give him 2.5 points.
I give Faulconer 0.1 points as is typical for a Republican.
Newsom decided that the state will pay off all rental debt accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic, an action which perversely incentivizes delinquency and is clearly inferior to broader poverty relief like basic income payments. It may seem more justified considering the hardships of the pandemic, but considering that people already got stimulus checks and unemployment benefits from the government in 2020, the timing really does not make it better. In fact, poverty in America fell in 2020 and 2021 to reach its lowest level in history, and unemployment also fell extremely low in 2021, so this is really one of the least appropriate times to offer debt relief.
One of Newsom's economic advisors has done pioneering work implementing UBI.
Newsom signed a bill for a commission to study the possibility of racial reparations for slavery.
I give Newsom 0.1 points.
Elder is a Republican and fairly ideologically conservative, including wanting to reduce benefits for undocumented migrants, so I give him -1.5 points.
I give Paffrath 0.8 points as is typical for a Democrat.
Faulconer is a Republican, but a moderate one, so I give him 0 points.
I give Newsom 0 points as is typical for a Democrat.
Elder published a book in 2000 calling to abolish the IRS, pass a national sales tax, and eliminate corporate taxes. Of course this may not be relevant for his current views. In general, he's very conservative. He won't be able to get significant reforms passed, but he might try to deliberately undermine enforcement of taxation or just behave irresponsibly on the subject. I give him -0.6 points.
Paffrath wants to eliminate state income taxes under $250,000, but I doubt this is realistic. I give him 0 points.
Faulconer wants to eliminate state income taxes for individuals under $50,000 and households under $100,000, but I doubt this is realistic. I give him 0 points.
As an establishment Democrat, Newsom can be entirely trusted to pick another Democrat to succeed Feinstein (see my analysis of the political parties showing that Democrats are superior to Republicans).
Newsom refuses to consider any men, whites, Hispanics or Asians as potential replacements for Feinstein. This is morally worrisome as an instance of both racial discrimination and gender discrimination, although the racial aspect can be understood positively as a hacky way of correcting for the fact that the use of geographic districts for congressional elections (as opposed to proportional representationProportional representation would not automatically create a more racially representative congress, but it would probably mitigate the issue, as parties could fine-tune the lineup of congresspeople to adequately represent all their constituents.) creates a structural underrepresentation of African-Americans, and the gender aspect can be understood positively as a way to correct for social factors making women less likely to become successful politicians.
More concretely, we can expect that constraining the race and gender of candidates will reduce the pool of potential applicants and will therefore lead to someone less meritorious being selected. However, this logic is tenuous in the case of Senate appointments. Senators don't have demanding jobs and don't have comprehensive responsibilities, at least not compared to executives and bureaucratic officials. The ordinary senatorial tasks of voting and haggling over bill contents to support the demands of their constituents do not require a great deal of competence. And it's not like the governor ordinarily tries to pick the most intelligent and meritorious person for the job of senator anyway; it is done for narrow reasons like party interest and ideological alignment. Newsom may have a difficult time finding an African-American senate candidate who is closely aligned with his own political goals and coalition, but since Newsom's own political objectives are not more desirable than those of the rest of the Democratic Party, this isn't something that should really worry us.
So Newsom's discriminatory stance doesn't seem very harmful. But note that Feinstein's replacement would have an incumbency advantage and would presumably retain her seat well into the 21st century. Even if discrimination leads to only a slight decline in senatorial merit, that could mean a great deal over the decades.
Overall, I give Newsom 1.8 points.
Considering his views, Elder would presumably pick a conservative Republican to succeed Feinstein. I give him -2.5 points.
As a Democrat, Paffrath would probably pick another Democrat to succeed Feinstein, but considering the fact that he's not a regular politician in the party and kind of a populist, we can't entirely trust him here. He presumably won't appoint a Republican, but maybe he'd pick an independent centrist, which would generally be worse than picking a Democrat. Overall, I give Paffrath 1.5 points.
Faulconer would presumably pick a Republican to succeed Feinstein, but since Faulconer is moderate for a Republican, he might pick a relatively moderate one. Overall, I give him -1.3 points.
Newsom is very politically experienced, especially considering that he's already governor.
When SB 1120 missed the voting deadline at the end of the 2020 legislative session, a failure caused by irresponsible procedural obstruction from certain legislators, Newsom indefensibly declined to call the legislature to an extended session. Prioritizing extended vacations for political colleagues over progress in lawmaking suggests that Newsom is a pathetic excuse for a leader, but maybe such complacency could be expected from any but the most ideologically serious governors, I don't know what is considered politically normal for this kind of thing.
Newsom is chronically delinquent on property taxes and might have committed property tax fraud with his mansion.
Newsom has longstanding ties to a corrupt Democratic power player.
Newsom has been accused of corruption for a variety of other reasons but these accusations appear spuriousNewsom's BYD mask deal and high-speed rail project have been cited as corruption, as well as something about ballots in the 2020 election, but cursory looks at these claims show that they are unfounded, or at least they don't show that the Newsom administration is corrupt..
Newsom attended a dinner party at the French Laundry restaurant in violation of his own administration's social distancing guidelines. While this reflects poorly on him, remember that symbolic hypocrisies like this are not as important as other factors like work experience and real corruption.
Newsom appointed a less competent person to the role of California's chief public health officer because of her race. She acted terribly during the COVID-19 crisis, "com[ing] across as a real-life Dolores Umbridge", acting just as badly as any of the officials in the Trump administration, and delaying California's pandemic response until better people could get Newsom's ear.
One of the most important things to judge here is Newsom's leadership during COVID-19. At the first wave of the disease when early non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were critical, Newsom was "the first governor in America to issue a statewide order to shutter businesses and keep people at home", although "Newsom had help when, three days earlier, public health officials in six Bay Area counties went first and issued a joint stay-at-home order".
On April 1, 2020, California was apparently the first state in America to recommend face masks. The guidance still promoted misinformation about the importance of hand washing and irresponsibly recommended that people leave surgical and N-95 masks for healthcare workers only, but this was pretty widespread among governments anyway.
Newsom's implementation of NPIs in the middle and later phases of the pandemic has been criticized by some people who wanted a faster reopening. However, as described in my policy platform on pandemics, there is extensive debate over the value of NPIs and it's really not clear whether they were bad in these cases. Some of Newsom's restrictions were mistakes, like early beach closures and later school closures, but some such as indoor dining closure were probably beneficial. California ended up worst in the nation for school reopening, and this seems to be partially Newsom's fault: "governors in Oregon and Washington this month issued executive orders mandating that schools reopen. Newsom declined to go that route, preferring instead to dangle $2 billion in incentives as part of a compromise with teachers unions — a move that has still left many students at home". California's mandate for even vaccinated people to wear masks seems like a bad idea, but the harm of unnecessary inconvenience is very small compared to the good that Newsom did with proactive steps early in the pandemic.
California was slow with early vaccinations, but soon improved. As of June 2021, California was above average in vaccinations. Newsom implemented a vaccine lottery, something which in hindsight appears limited in impact, but was certainly worth trying at the time.
Overall, Newsom's leadership during COVID-19 was fairly proactive and effective. While there were some shortcomings, he probably did a better job than most others would have in his position.
Another, lesser crisis has been wildfire. Newsom misled the public about fire prevention efforts.
Newsom apologized for the genocide of Native Americans in California.
Newsom is evidently a selfish person, considering that he owns expensive properties and doesn't seem to give much to charity. However that can be said of just about any other political candidate.
Overall, I give Newsom -1 point.
Elder is significantly underqualified to be governor, as his experience consists mainly of political media (radio, books, documentary) following a ten-year legal career. His live TV show is brain-melting demagoguery, and his podcast seems a little better but still propagandistic and misleading. According to one anecdote from 1997, he's more reasonable deep down than his media persona, which seems very plausible but of course there's no reason to expect him to change his act once in office. Recently he refused to admit to his friend (who had a disabled son) that it was offensive for Trump to mock a reporter's disability, sending all-caps emails and losing his 37-year friendship, suggesting a level of partisan brainworm that goes beyond the bounds of professionalism and human decency, although without actually seeing the emails we cannot make very confident judgments.
Elder seems friendly to right-wing racistsAccording to this article, Elder cited Jared Taylor several times in 1998-2002. Taylor believes that whites are systematically superior to blacks, advocates voluntary racial segregation, espouses the white genocide conspiracy theory, and generally advocates for white interests, indicating a fundamental disregard for the well-being of blacks, although he denies being racist. In 2016 Elder linked to a blog post on VDARE, a website which hosts a variety of racist views; the particular post quoted Muhammed Ali opposing interracial marriage, but it's not clear to me whether it's meant to attack Ali or to attack interracial marriage (or both). According to the article, Elder also mentored Stephen Miller. Now it's really dubious to suppose that Elder (who is African-American) is racist against African-Americans, and media like the LA Times can easily be suspected of cherrypicking or distorting things out of context on an issue like this. Still, there is cause for concern here about Elder's political and moral judgment, even if we don't think he's actually racist. I suspect that Elder has a general disdain for younger and more liberal African-Americans and most African-American political culture, and sees right-wing racism as being similar and overlapping with his views..
In 2000-2001, Elder ran a TV show called Moral Court in which he acted like a judge resolving disputes based on who was morally right. From the clips that I've found from the show, his judgments seemed decent for whatever that's worth. Although I am curious about what he did on the episode which featured the KKK leader Jeff Berry.
Elder may have threatened his fiancee with a gun, suggesting bad mental or moral character, although it may have been partly caused by him being high on marijuana at the time (and presumably he won't use marijuana while in office), and it could easily be a false allegation - many people make damaging lies about their exes.
I give Elder -2.4 points.
Paffrath is very unqualified to be governor, as his experience consists entirely of small-time real estate and a series of social media videos about investing and landlording. Apparently most of his income comes from social media rather than investing, but it's not like investing is any more relevant to politics than social media is. He is a bit of a demagogue, as evidenced by his implausible promises to rapidly fix homelessness and his clickbaity, mildly conspiratorial accusations of corruption against Newsom and media entities. He recently interviewed the Austrian economics crank Peter Schiff on his show, but he did show disagreement with some of Schiff's more extreme libertarian views, and considering that our monetary policy is all handled by the federal government it's not a big deal if the governor believes some falsehoods about monetary policy. I've listened to a bit of his investing advice and while I don't agree with all of it, it doesn't strike me as bad in any serious way. Some of his landlording advice has been criticized as being unfair to tenants, but this is not worrisomeThe controversy is essentially that he advocates profit maximization even when it means turning down unreliable tenants. But similar criticism can be made of any other candidate who doesn't donate much of their surplus wealth to charity. Nearly all political candidates appear to be ordinarily selfish people who keep most of their excess wealth for themselves. Newsom's behavior is arguably even worse because he owns real estate that he doesn't seem to be renting out to anybody at all, whereas Paffrath at least rents it out to some people. So Paffrath doesn't deserve to lose any points here. Additionally, just because Paffrath believes in maximizing his personal wealth doesn't mean he believes that the government should neglect poor people and renters; he just believes in separating business from social activism. In any case, California is so left-wing on welfare and tenant protections that it might be a healthy change for a more traditional capitalist to be elected governor. And Paffrath's actual policy views on welfare seem perfectly benign..
Overall, I give Paffrath -1.5 points.
Faulconer is adequately politically experienced with tenure as the mayor of San Diego. I give him 1 point.
Due to the special circumstances of the recall election, it is fair to use it as a referendum on Newsom's performance during the pandemic. If Newsom was an otherwise good governor who bungled the crisis, it might be justified to recall him, to send a strong signal of punishing politicians who mishandle crises. And if he is a bad governor who did a good job on the crisis, maybe we should vote against recall even though we think Newsom will do a poor job in the future, just to send a message against the irrational anti-lockdown backlashAs noted briefly in this article and more extensively in my policy platform, there is debate over the extent to which non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 were justified. A few of the interventions definitely seem to have done more harm than good, while many others did more good than harm. While there is room for reasonable debate on the margins of policy, the strain of populist backlash against NPIs was another matter entirely. Anti-NPI backlash typically failed to distinguish the dubious interventions from the important ones, and was often associated with severe ignorance about the threat of COVID-19, profound apathy towards its many victims, and a persistent refusal to update despite being repeatedly embarrassed by new events and information. See for instance the nonsensical flu comparisons which were prevalent early in the pandemic, "the useful libertarian idiocy of the Great Barrington declaration", awful punditry like that of Alex Berenson, the bad science and wildly miscalibrated predictions made by John Ioannidis of Stanford University among other scientists, the faddish fixation on hydroxychloroquine which was consistently shown to be ineffective in multiple randomized controlled trials, false claims of death counts being artificially inflated, and finally vaccine hesitancy. which contributed to the recall.
As described in the 'fitness for office' section, Newsom did pretty well on COVID-19 compared to most other politicians, so we should be more hesitant to recall him.
We should also have a slight bias against the recall vote as a matter of principle because it's simply a bad system. Executives in a presidential system should only be accountable to scheduled elections and to impeachments by the legislature, not popular referenda.
Overall, Newsom gets a merit score of 0.80, Elder gets -1.65, Paffrath gets 0.53 and Faulconer gets -0.06. Paffrath is the best challenger, so he should be selected as Newsom's potential replacement. Given the probabilities of various challengers winning the election, the expected value of a successful recall is -1.18, and Newsom is better than every single challenger anyway, so clearly Newsom should not be recalled. See the scoring model here.
I recommend against donating to any candidates in this election. Newsom is already getting plenty of cash, and donations to Paffrath increase the chance of a successful recall which will most likely lead to the disaster of Elder winning the election. Save your money for other causes.
One complicating consideration that I haven't taken into account is the chance of reelection. I think Elder would almost certainly lose reelection whereas Faulconer and Paffrath might win; this could be considered one reason to think better of Elder compared to the other challenges, but I don't think it really changes any of the conclusions. Faulconer and Paffrath are decent enough that it isn't particularly worrisome if they win reelection over a mainstream Democrat, and Elder's deficiency in conventional scoring seems too great to be outweighed here.
The key criteria here are Senate appointment and fitness for office, which are both very important and fairly debatable. Sensitivity analysis (see the Excel model) shows that if Senate appointment is given less weight, then Faulconer may be preferred over Paffrath. The transition happens when the weight of Senate appointment is reduced by half. So Faulconer actually appears better at running the state of California than Paffrath does, the problem is just that he would appoint a Republican to the Senate. Fitness for office also substantially affects the results, as Faulconer appears much more fit for office than Paffrath. If fitness for office is doubled in importance then Faulconer is preferred over Paffrath. If neither fitness for office nor Senate appointment are given any weight at all, then Paffrath is still slightly better than Faulconer.
But even if Faulconer appears better than Paffrath, that doesn't mean we should vote for him. Faulconer's odds of winning are negligible according to prediction markets, so an extra vote for him is particularly unlikely to swing the election, whereas an extra vote for Paffrath has a relatively good chance of making the difference between him and Elder. If Faulconer were clearly, vastly better than Paffrath, then voting for him might make sense, but there are no reasonable assumptions which would imply that Faulconer is so much better. Therefore, one should definitely vote for Paffrath.
Depending on assumptions, one might argue that Faulconer or Paffrath is better than Newsom. If Senate appointment is given no weight at all, then Faulconer appears a little better than Newsom, and Paffrath's score is close enough to Newsom's that several kinds of plausible variation in scoring and weighting might give him a lead over Newsom. However, since Elder is the most likely challenger to win, and his score is very bad, there are no plausible assumptions which would justify voting yes on recall.