Director of the Los Angeles Initiative Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to the Orange County Register about voter turnout in the upcoming recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Yaroslavsky explained that when Republicans started mobilizing to get enough signatures to put the recall of Newsom on the ballot, most Democrats didn’t think the governor was actually in trouble. “They thought ‘He can’t possibly lose. This is a blue state,’” Yaroslavsky said. Now that ballots are being mailed out and the recall election is drawing near, Democrats have been rolling out anti-recall efforts and encouraging voters to vote “no.” Yaroslavsky predicted that as Newsom’s campaign ramps up, voter engagement will also pick up. “People are starting to focus on the stakes and what it means for Newsom to be out of office,” he said. “The stakes are pretty high, and everybody needs to know it.”