Chamath @ 00:28:19Inconclusive
politicsgovernment
The 2021 Gavin Newsom recall effort will materially affect the candidate fields in future California gubernatorial races: (1) it will influence which candidates choose to run in Newsom's regular re-election in 2023/2024, and (2) it will change which Democrats run for governor in the subsequent open-cycle four years later (around 2027/2028), compared with the candidate fields that would have emerged absent the recall.
The implications of this recall, I think are really important. Um, and I think it plays out in who runs, uh, in two years when, um, Newsom is up for reelection. And absolutely, it'll change. Who runs on the Democratic side in four years?View on YouTube
Explanation
Chamath’s prediction has two explicit time components tied to future candidate fields:
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Effect on who ran against Newsom in his next regular election (~2022)
- The 2021 recall was held on September 14, 2021, and Newsom survived comfortably, with about 62% voting “No” on the recall. (en.wikipedia.org)
- Newsom then won re‑election in the regular 2022 California gubernatorial election on November 8, 2022, defeating Republican state senator Brian Dahle with about 59% of the vote. (en.wikipedia.org)
- The 2022 primary and general fields featured Newsom as the dominant Democrat with no top‑tier Democratic challenger; however, there is no clear empirical evidence isolating the recall as the cause of which Democrats did or did not enter that race, and any comparison to a hypothetical world without the recall is inherently counterfactual.
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Effect on which Democrats run in the next open gubernatorial cycle (~2026/2027)
- Newsom is term‑limited and cannot run again in 2026; the 2026 California gubernatorial election is scheduled for November 3, 2026, with a top‑two primary on June 2, 2026. (en.wikipedia.org)
- As of November 2025, the race is still ongoing with a large and fluid Democratic field (e.g., Katie Porter, Xavier Becerra, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa, Betty Yee and others) and several prominent figures having declined or exited (e.g., Kamala Harris and Alex Padilla declining to run; Eleni Kounalakis dropping out). (en.wikipedia.org)
- Candidate filing deadlines for 2026 statewide races (including lieutenant governor and attorney general) run into March 2026, and the final gubernatorial ballot is not yet set; the field is still actively changing. (en.wikipedia.org)
- No scholarly or journalistic consensus directly attributes the composition of this evolving 2026 field to the 2021 recall in a way that would let us test Chamath’s specific counterfactual claim (“compared with the candidate fields that would have emerged absent the recall”).
Because (a) the 2026 open-seat race has not yet reached its final candidate field, and (b) the claim itself is counterfactual and there is no rigorous evidence tying observed candidate choices in 2022 or 2026 directly to the recall, there isn’t enough concrete, testable information to decisively say the prediction was right or wrong at this time. Hence the status is inconclusive (too early and too counterfactual to verify).