California Gov. Gavin Newsom will keep his job steering the nation's most populous state.

A majority of Californians have voted no - meaning against removing Newsom from office - in Tuesday's recall election of the embattled first-term Democratic governor.

Newsom, who was overwhelmingly elected governor in 2018 in the heavily blue state, was facing a recall drive sparked last year mainly over accusations that he mishandled his state’s response to the coronavirus, the worst pandemic to strike the globe in a century.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a decisive answer to the question of whether voters would penalize those who enacted strict policies aimed at slowing the coronavirus pandemic, triumphing over an effort to recall him Tuesday.

Newsom faced the first recall election in California in 18 years. At one point, weeks before the election, he appeared to be in serious enough jeopardy that Democrats decided to dispatch President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign for him.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) defeated a Republican-backed effort to remove him, AP projected on Tuesday night.

Why it matters, via Axios' Margaret Talev: Tuesday's results highlight the limits of Republicans trying to use Trump tactics in a deeply Democratic state.

The campaign of Larry Elder — a conservative radio show host and Black Republican who has embraced Trump and anti-COVID vaccine rhetoric — in particular may have done more to help Newsom than hurt him by motivating Democrats to cast their ballots.

For nearly 25 years, Gov. Gavin Newsom rose the ranks of California politics without ever losing an election, buoyed by connections to powerful San Francisco Democrats and a willingness to take risks — like sanctinoing same-sex marriage — that put him at the vanguard of his party.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic. 

Actress Rose McGowan endorsed Republican California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder on Sunday, while also criticizing Black Lives Matter (BLM) for being divisive.

“They want to hear that the more we micro-label each other, the better we’ll be,” McGowan said Sunday. “The reality is, today, I challenge this state, I challenge these voters, I challenge the media, to back up. Be human first, vote for humanity.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom heads into the Golden State recall Tuesday with the wind at his back after the last polls of the race show voters want to keep him in the job.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, no governor in America moved faster to close down schools, restrict businesses and order his own constituents into a long and painful lockdown than did California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

In a blitz of TV ads and a last-minute rally, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom urged voters Sunday to turn back a looming recall vote that could remove him from office, while leading Republican Larry Elder broadly criticized the media for what he described as double standards that insulated Newsom from criticism and scrutiny throughout the contest.

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder got a hostile reception as he toured a Venice homeless encampment Wednesday — with one woman in a pink gorilla mask chucking an egg that narrowly missed the radio talk show host’s head.

Video tweeted by Spectrum News reporter Kate Cagle showed the unidentified black-clad woman steering her bike into position a few feet from Elder’s left shoulder before letting fly with the missile.

Larry Elder’s scheduled tour of homeless encampments in Venice ended shortly after it began Wednesday morning, with the leading Republican in the gubernatorial recall race hastily exiting in an SUV after being angrily confronted by a group of homeless people and advocates.

Elder — who had arrived in his new “Recall Express” campaign bus shortly after casting his ballot at a voting center across town — spent roughly 12 minutes in the neighborhood, with his departure hastened by what appeared to be an egg thrown in the candidate’s direction and a physical assault on his staff.