September 16, 2021: -Gavin Newsom survived a Republican attempt to remove him from office as California’s governor, which ensures the Democrat can serve out the rest of his term as the top official in the most populous state of the nation, according to an NBC News projection.

With 66% of the expected vote in, Newsom led with 5,619,538 votes, or 65.8%, against deleting him from office, comparing with 2,916,257 votes, or 34.2%, in favor of the recall.

On Tuesday, Polls for in-person voting closed at 11 p.m. Voters had been submitting mail-in ballots for some weeks ahead of time.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Newsom thanked his supporters and said, “no is not the only thing expressed tonight.”

“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We agreed to end this pandemic. We said yes to people’s right to vote without fearing fake fraud or voter suppression. We said yes to fundamental of women, constitutional right to decide for herself what she did with her body and her fate and future,” he said.

The gubernatorial recall effort was the second in California’s history to qualify for the ballot, which gives Republicans a chance to seize power in an otherwise deep-blue state.

Voters were to vote two questions: should Newsom be replaced, and if he is recalled, who out of his 46 opponents in the election should take his place?

Newsom, elected by an overwhelming margin in 2018 to a term that would be finished in 2023, spent months trying to fend off the Republican-led effort that gained traction in the previous year over allegations that he mishandled the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Almost 1.5 million Californians signed the recall petition because of the frustrations over state-issued health orders and the appearance of a maskless Newsom at a dinner party in the height of increasing Covid cases.

The recall effort became just one of the few crises that Newsom, steward of the most significant state economy in the United States, had to juggle in the past year, in addition to wildfires, drought, increasing costs of living, and, of course, the pandemic. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Covid transmission rates in California are dropping, however.

Polling in the summer showed a tight race in the recall election but recently shifted in Newsom’s favor.

His campaign drives turnout among complacent Democratic voters, who outnumber Republicans in the electorate by 2 to 1 of the state, as they gained a colossal lead in early mail-in ballot returns.