And in California Recall News...

Last week, when checking Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com website, he had Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead by just 1.2% in the California recall.  Then three days ago, new polling show it jumping to 5.6%.  Checking the site today, that margin is up to 8.4%.

Better still, this confirms the results from Public Policy Institute of California (who has an A/B rating from Nate Silver).  A couple of days ago, they had Newsom ahead by 18 points.  Certainly their numbers are from different the Silver average, but both show a deep widening of the margin.

I have a theory for this big and near-sudden change, with two reasons.  One is that, from articles I read, they said that the recent shift in the storyline of the recall from "Should Newsom be recalled?" to more of an election between Newsom and the far-right radio host Larry Elder should be a big help to Newsom.  The other is that every voter in California had finally received a mail-in ballot about two week or so ago.  I wonder if having an actual ballot in hand turned a theoretical recall protest more into an actual event and got voters focusing more closely and seriously what was at risk.

These are still just polls, and meaningless.  So, it's still a battle. The only question that matters is voting.  But it certainly appears to be going the right direction.

And I also think that will Democrats holding over a 2-to-1 margin of registered voters in the state, I think that the ease of having a mail-in ballot should ​benefit the governor even more.  We'll see.