What it would take for Republicans to recall a Democratic governor in deep blue California

All eyes are on a state that backed President Joe Biden by nearly 30 points, where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2-to-1, to see if voters will oust their Democratic governor. At first glance, the numbers wouldn't seem to make it possible, but the political climate has created some unpredictable crosswinds for Gov. Gavin Newsom this year.

In a poll from the Public Policy Institute of California released Thursday, 58% of likely voters said they would vote against recalling Newsom, while 39% said they would vote for the recall. That's certainly good news for Newsom -- and in line with the institute's May polling -- after some polls last month showed that support for keeping him in office only narrowly outpaced support for removing him, a stunning reversal of fortune for a Democrat who won with a 24-point margin in 2018. But Thursday's poll isn't all good news for the governor. Of those planning to vote for the recall, 63% said they're more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared with just 37% of those planning to vote against the recall. As the GOP effort to recall Newsom gained steam over the past year, Democrats have been nervous that apathy on their side could mitigate their strong advantage in voter registration. At the most basic level, the nightmare scenario for Newsom is a recall election where there is unusually high Republican turnout and very low Democratic turnout in a contest where all 22 million of the state's registered voters have received ballots in the mail.