The “Recall Newsom 2020″ campaign has collected the nearly 1.5 million signatures needed to start the process to oust the governor of California. Randy Economy, the senior advisor for the campaign says Newsom’s days are numbered.

“He might think he’s doing a great job, he might think that he’s been given a bad deck of cards and a raw deal but you know what, look at the lives who he’s impacted each and everyday,” says Economy.

Governor Gavin Newsom said during a news conference when asked about the recall that he’s working to get California out of the pandemic’s grip, “I’m focused every single day on getting businesses opened, our schools reopened, increasing the rate of vaccination … I don’t care if you’re Democrat or Republican, I care that you’re healthy and safe and you can live your life out-loud without fear of a pandemic.”

Economy says Newsom is the only one to blame for these efforts, not the pandemic, “He released the prisoners and held 45 million Californians locked down in their own homes, that’s not acceptable, that’s outrageous.”

Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, (D) 56th District, says there’s no question mistakes were made a long the way but many of the setbacks the state had were because of a lack of federal planning but changes are coming, “Gavin Newsom is working very closely with the Biden administration so there’s a lot of synergy that’s taking place now which is why I believe that the recall effort would set California back significantly the fact of the matter is, is that there’s ideological differences, there’s political differences and that’s being driven by the recall.”

He says this recall was started by “anti-vaxxers” long before COVID, upset the governor created policy to vaccinate school children but now are calling the governor out for failures in the vaccination roll out, “The irony, today we’re actually arguing about COVID-19 crisis and vaccines,” adding he’s working with the governor to bring equity to vaccines and better internet connectivity to communities left behind.

But Economy says it’s more than that and this bipartisan effort gained momentum when he went to dinner at a fancy restaurant with lobbyists while the state was on lock-down, “Californians who are frustrated by his lock-downs, there’s frustrations by his hypocrisy, the frustration that he does one thing in front of the camera and then behind the scenes he goes has a dinner that costs $44,000 with 22 lobbyists with the California medical association on down at the French Laundry and he gets caught and tried to deny it at the beginning but you know you can’t deny this, Kitty,” says Economy as he holds up his phone.

Right now only 86 percent of the signatures are verified, so Economy says this process is long and needs more support to make the fifth recall stick, “We’re not there, there, as far as signatures.”

Some people say the recall effort is just a Republican power grab.

But economy says their efforts are focused on letting the people’s right to choose, “We’re not here to elect the next governor, we’re here to make sure this one’s held accountable)) and that the people have the opportunity to go to the polls in the middle of the summer to use their democratic process to go ahead and say shall he remain in office or shall he be removed immediately.”

Economy says “Rescue California” is not part of their efforts. He says they started the original recall and that effort is trying to take credit for the work they did and do not speak for them.

Recall Newsom 2020 is looking to collect 1.9 million signatures, more than the required 12 percent of the votes cast in the previous election so when they are verified by the Secretary of State Dr. Shirley Weber.

The deadline for the signatures is March 17, 2021.

For the latest numbers click here: Recall Newsom Signatures

We reached out to Governor Newsom’s staff for comment, they did not return our call.

Recall Newsom Campaign Nears Signature Threshold