Written by Hannah Schmidtler
Kevin Faulconer, San Diego’s former mayor, recently announced that he signed a petition to recall Gavin Newsom. The petition, which has been signed by more than one million Californians, attempts to recall Newsom for his poor handling of the pandemic, among other things. Faulconer also announced that he has established an exploratory committee to run for governor which is the first step to begin fundraising for his potential gubernatorial campaign.
Faulconer said he is looking to potentially run on the recall ballot if the recall petition gains the required 1,495,709 signatures by mid-March. He also expressed interest in running for governorship in 2022, if the recall does not go through.
Some believe that the likelihood of a Faulconer win seems low as he is a Republican and a majority of California voters are registered Democrats. However, Faulconer is a moderate republican and displayed his bi-partisan style of leadership during his time as San Diego Mayor.
Faulconer has been critical of many of Newsom’s policies, stating, “Between the mismanagement during key points of the pandemic, the toxic business environment, the shaky economy, the disappearing jobs, the rolling blackouts, the missing unemployment checks and billions of dollars in fraud, and of course the skyrocketing homelessness, I strongly believe we need new leadership in the governor’s office.”
Just this week Faulconer came out in opposition to Gov. Newsom’s proposal for the 2021-2022 budget, which allocates $1.5B for zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure.
In the middle of a pandemic and deep recession, California's highest priority should not be zero emission vehicles. We need K-12 education at the top of this list. https://t.co/Axb86NyrpD
— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) January 5, 2021
