California Gov. Gavin Newsom had "certainly had" Tuesday's recall election coming because in the three years he's been governor, he has remained "off base with what the priorities are," Rep. Doug LaMalfa said on Newsmax Monday.
"We have a drought situation in California yet we're not building a water supply," the California Republican told Newsmax's "National Report." "We have a couple of million acres of wildfire that have devastated so much [and] he has made claims he's going to do something about that and has actually done very little."
When you couple that with his "authoritarian tone" on dealing with the COVID situation, "people are sick of it," LaMalfa continued.
"This is not a partisan issue," he said. "I have constituents in my district here that are angry across the board, independents, Democrats that told me that they're angry and they're they don't know why they voted for this guy."
Californians are also frustrated because of the business shutdowns that have hurt the state both economically and psychologically, LaMalfa added.
"People are so disappointed," he said. "They're really depressed, and our school system is feeling that same effect too as they go on again, off again, with mask mandates."
Schools are also expected to be shut down again, and that's also depressing people, he continued.
"There's a lot of manipulation of statistics," said LaMalfa. "People are just tired. They're discouraged, and they look at Gavin Newsom as not having really led, but kind of running from a standpoint of fear."
Meanwhile, party leaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are campaigning for Newsom, and former President Barack Obama released a video in his support, but LaMalfa questioned what difference their support would make.
"Kamala Harris, back during the presidential election, wasn't even near the top of the candidates for Californians," said LaMalfa. "Somehow she got elected senator, but her numbers aren't really great around here. President Biden is showing up today. We have a couple of legislators, with me, we actually invited the president some weeks ago to come out and look at our fire situation. So it's a nice coincidence that's happening just the day before the election."
Democrats also "want to ignore" the fact that Californians and businesses are leaving the state because of its economy and regulations.
"If you want to invest in stock in California, you'd invest in U-Haul," said LaMalfa. "Just a couple of years ago, even Tesla. They want to build a battery plant in California. They looked at all the regulations. They really, really tried and they ended up saying no, we can't do it here ... the flight to flight to Texas to Arizona to Tennessee, Idaho, is very real because people can't afford it anymore. They don't see that there's any optimism, if you want to run a business that you're not going to be hounded to death by crazy regulations with COVID or the environmental stuff or taxes...they say they have a surplus. They're still looking for new ways to tax such as taxing your car every mile you drive."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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