Seven takeaways from California's recall election

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday won a broad and renewed mandate from voters who soundly rejected a recall attempt on the strength of a mammoth turnout campaign that targeted Democratic voters.

Newsom is the second governor in American history, after former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), to survive a recall attempt. His victory comes just weeks before the 18th anniversary of a recall that ousted then-California Gov. Gray Davis (D).

Here are seven things we learned from Tuesday’s results.

Newsom’s margin was bigger than expected

With about two-thirds of the expected vote in, 64 percent of California voters had chosen to keep Newsom around for the end of his first term.

That margin is likely to shrink at least a little bit in the coming days, as more votes are counted; votes cast on Election Day are going to be the most conservative cohort, while the first ballots returned — those already counted — were the most favorable for Newsom.

But Newsom’s final margin of victory is going to be somewhere around the widest that any poll projected in recent weeks. Both Emerson and the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found 60 percent of California voters rejecting the recall, results that their polling directors are going to be happy with.