Voters Appear to Oust Davis, Exit Polls Show
Schwarzenegger Likely to Become Calif. Governor
By William Booth, Rene Sanchez and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 7, 2003; 11:00 PM
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7 -- California voters appear to have ousted unpopular Democratic Gov. Gray Davis today and replaced him with Republican movie star and political novice Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to exit polls.
Davis would be only the nation's second governor in 82 years to be recalled. Voters were tired of his inability to fix the state's budget problems, polls have shown, and weary of his constant fundraising which led many here to say special interests held sway in Sacramento.
In his place, the exit polls indicated voters favored an untested celebrity candidate who has run a campaign short of specifics but flush with the drama, including announcing his candidacy on the Jay Leno show and late-breaking charges that he inappropriately touched women.
If the exit polling is confirmed, the election represents one of the most remarkable turnabouts in California's political history. Democrats once talked about a Davis run for the White House. A few years ago, Schwarzenegger's draw was only discussed in box office terms.
California's county registrars reported large numbers of voters turning out throughout the day. There were reports of confusion at some polling stations because of the length of the ballot and the reduced number of voting places. But most registrars said the vote was proceeding smoothly enough.
Voting officials warned it could be Wednesday morning before they finished tallying enough of the votes to call the election. If the election is close, it could be days before the final results are definitively known. If Davis is recalled, his replacement will likely not take office for several weeks, as they must wait for the vote to be officially certified.
Davis, who built his lifelong career of public service as a somewhat dull but steadfast centrist, appears to have been abandoned by many in his own party, which until today held all statewide offices, both U.S. Senate seats, the majorities in both houses of the state legislature, and in the congressional delegation.
The exit polling suggested that Schwarzenegger was beating back allegations that he lewdly groped women, including 15 whose stories were reported by the Los Angeles Times five days before the election. He was rallying Republicans to his side, outpacing the other major GOP contender, conservative state senator Tom McClintock, according to interviews conducted by the Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, who are conducting the exit surveys for the Washington Post and other media outlets.
Also in the running was Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a liberal Latino and the most prominent Democrat in the race to replace Davis. The exit polls suggested he was running well behind Schwarzenegger.
The exit polls indicated that Davis failed to win large support within core Democratic constituencies such as union members and Hispanics, and was unable to persuade women that they should not trust Schwarzenegger as governor.
Fifty-one percent of voters from union households voted to kick him out, as did 47 percent of Hispanics, according to exit polling. Fifty-three percent of women wanted Davis gone.
A majority of Independents voted to remove Davis as did 89 percent of Republicans and one-quarter of all Democrats, exit polls showed.
Schwarzenegger appeared to have weathered a storm of charges during the final week of the campaign from 16 women who said he had groped and humiliated them. Despite the accusations, the Republican was the choice of 42 percent of women voters, while Bustamante was picked by 37 percent.
Schwarzenegger also overcame fears among some Republicans that conservative Tom McClintock would so divide the GOP vote that Bustamante would be able to triumph.
Bustamante outpolled all other candidates among voters who make less than $50,000 a year, while Schwarzenegger was favored by voters who earn $50,000 or more annually.
There were 135 candidates on the remarkable ballot that ran to eight printed pages and included names of a porn star, a sumo wrestler, a retired meatpacker and a watermelon juggler.
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley declined to estimate the turnout before the polls closed, but he said the recall had no precedent. Almost 15.4 million voters -- a record number of voters for a governor's race -- were registered.
Typical was Maria Burnell, marking her choices in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles. "You had to really look for the name of your guy," Burnell said, referring to the eight-page, punch-card ballot. "And then they kept telling us to watch our chads."
The fast-paced election--the recall was certified only 76 days ago--had state voting officials worried. They feared it would turn into a reprise of the Florida 2000 presidential election debacle.
The California Field Poll predicted that 10 million voters would go to the polls -- the largest number for a non-presidential election since 1982, when George Deukmejian defeated Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley for the governorship. About 11 million votes were cast in 2000 presidential contest between now President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore.
The Field Poll's Mark DiCamillo said that, traditionally, heavy turnout favors Democrats, because there are a lot more registered Democrats than Republicans. A high turnout brings younger voters and Latinos to the polls, to counterbalance the older, white electorate that consistently votes. But in this election, DiCamillo warned, younger and ethnic voters appeared to be favoring recall.
The election was put on hold once by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and then allowed to go forward by the same court. The American Civil Liberties Union, representing several black and Latino civil rights groups, had argued that the use of outmoded punch-card machines in six urban counties would disenfranchise voters whose ballots would be misread or discarded because of hanging chads or other errors. But the appellate court decided that the rights of citizens to stage their recall election outweighed the possibility of some ballot error. If the vote turns out to be very close, the ACLU might be back in court.
The recall vote culminates an historic, dizzying political drama that has defied convention and, at times, explanation. California has never staged anything like it. Only one other governor in American history has been subject to such a recall election. That was in North Dakota, in 1921, and that governor was recalled.
This campaign, which has captivated the nation for the past two months, has unfolded in a state gone from boom to bust. California was basking in a $9 billion budget surplus five years ago, when Davis took office, but it is now saddled with a massive financial crisis.
The governor and state lawmakers have struggled for much of the year to come to grips with a record $38 billion deficit. They have borrowed billions of dollars, raised college fees, closed health clinics, tripled car taxes-and still have not solved the problem. Californians face an $8 billion state budget deficit, persistent unemployment and struggling schools.
Many voters are just plain mad.
More than 1.3 million of them signed petitions this summer to throw Davis out of office. In one September poll, only 27 percent of voters said that they trust the state's political leaders "to do what is right."
In the closing weeks of the campaign, Schwarzenegger surged ahead in the opinion polls, but his campaign was broadsided by allegations published in the Los Angeles Times that he had groped or sexually taunted 15 women over the last 25 years of his career as a body-builder and actor.
Schwarzenegger fumbled with his apology, alternatively saying some of the stories were true, while not saying which ones. He did offer a vague but blanket apology for "behaving badly sometimes" with actions he thought were just "playful."
The women accused the movie star of propositioning them in crude manner; of running his hands up their shirts and skirts; and grabbing their breasts and buttocks.
When it began earlier this year, the recall movement appeared to be nothing more than a Quixotic quest by a small band of disgruntled Republican gadflies who blame Davis for much of what now ails California. For months after they began circulating petitions to oust the governor, even some GOP leaders were calling the effort pointless, and doomed.
Political activists had tried nearly three dozen times over the last century to recall California governors. None even came close to reaching the ballot, much less succeeding.
But the fate of this one turned when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif), a multimillionaire from suburban San Diego who made his fortune selling car alarms, decided to bankroll it. He spent more than $1.5 million enlisting an army of signature gatherers that swept across the state and tapped into the public's growing dismay with California's direction.
The recall election has galvanized voters unhappy with state politics like nothing else since the 1978 rebellion here against rising property taxes that led to the passage of Proposition 13. California has long embraced direct democracy, but the campaign of the past few months has been an entirely new, and more radical, vestige of that tradition.
Still, despite the fervor the recall has created, many voters, especially Democrats, have agreed with Davis's contention that it is partisan politics at its worst-a Republican attempt to overturn the results of last year's race for governor, which Davis narrowly won.
Davis, 60, once scoffed at the recall as mere partisan "mischief." But for the past two months the governor, who has worked in the top ranks of state government for nearly 30 years, has been fighting for his political life-and forsaking his cautious, bland style.
He has denounced the recall as a right-wing coup. He has reversed position on controversial issues-signing, for example, a bill granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. In recent weeks, he also has approved legislation that nearly sanctions gay marriage and greatly expands health care coverage to needy Californians, all in the hope of attracting Democratic voters. More than 2.2 million voters cast absentee ballots for the recall, exceeding those cast in the 2000 presidential election. Absentees that arrived at the last minute were not counted tonight because workers need time to verify the voters' signatures. Depending on how many absentees arrived election day, between 500,000 and 1.5 million votes may not be counted for several days or longer.
"Those received Monday and Tuesday will be done in a week or two," said Richard W. Bedal, County Clerk-Recorder in Santa Cruz. "That's a statewide issue. All the counties aren't going to be able to count the ballots they got today. If it's a close election, we may not know for -- we're telling people -- up to several weeks. We're preparing people for the worst."
Gail Pellerin, elections manager in Santa Cruz, said the only complaints she has received have been from people who voted absentee or voted early and want to change their votes because candidates dropped out or new information emerged.
"We have a lot of voters who have already cast a ballot and they say they want their ballot back," Pellerin said, because their candidates dropped out. "It causes great panic and anger and frustration at the voter level."
In addition to the recall, two ballot measures also were being decided: Proposition 53 would steer 1 percent of the state annual budget to fix California's roads, bridges and sewage plants, and Proposition 54 would ban the state from using race, ethnicity or national origin to classify people in public education, contracting and employment. The early exit polls suggested that Prop 54 was failing.
The cost of the election to California taxpayers was estimated at $67 million. More than $75 million was donated to the candidates and the recall campaigns.
As Davis faced the voter's wrath, the recall movement and campaign, which captivated the attention of the nation, might turn out to be another California export. Another 18 states have similar recall provisions, and already other activists are watching the Golden State and considering putting their own leaders before voters.
Lee reported from Washington. Staff writers Dan Balz and Evelyn Nieves in Los Angeles, Dan Keating and Assistant Polling Director Claudia Deane in Washington, and special correspondent Kimberly Edds in Sacramento contributed to this report. |
