The voters of California have decided to keep their Democratic governor in office, voting overwhelmingly "no" in the referendum organized by his detractors to obtain his dismissal, according to estimates released Tuesday evening by the American media.
The "no" would get about two-thirds of the vote after counting more than 60% of the ballots already counted, according to CNN and NBC.
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With such a lead, both channels believe the Democrat will remain governor of the most populous state in the United States and complete his term.
Polling stations closed at 8 p.m. local time (5 a.m. in Paris) but many voters, around 9 million out of 22 registered in total, had already voted in advance.
Using a provision of the Californian Constitution, dissatisfied citizens - very quickly rallied by the Republican Party - had obtained this "recall ballot" (recall) allowing to dismiss a governor outside any electoral calendar, after having collected more than 1, 5 million signatures.
Proof of the national stake of this referendum in a state equivalent to the fifth economic power in the world, President Joe Biden put on his hat as the boss of the Democratic camp and went to California on Monday to support Newsom.
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His Republican predecessor Donald Trump, for his part, chose once again to raise the specter of electoral fraud during the postal vote, accusations he had made after his defeat to Joe Biden without ever being able to substantiate them.
Echoing the deep divide that divides the United States, Californians supporters of the referendum denounce excessive taxes, a democratic "elite" perceived as contemptuous and individual freedoms flouted by the authorities since the start of the pandemic. Opponents see it as a maneuver to take control of a fiercely democratic state, out of reach for the conservatives in a classic election.