2003 California recall

California gubernatorial recall election, 2003

← 2002 October 7, 2003 2006 →
Candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger Cruz Bustamante Party Republican Democratic Republican Popular vote 4,206,284 2,724,874 1,161,287 Percentage 48.6% 31.5% 13.4%
County results (recall question)
Governor before election Gray Davis Democratic Elected Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Republican

Gray Davis
Democratic

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Republican

The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. Davis was ineligible to run for a third term due to term limits after the recall election. The recall effort spanned the latter half of 2003. Other California governors, including Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, and Pete Wilson, had faced unsuccessful recall attempts.

After several legal and procedural efforts failed to stop it, California's first-ever gubernatorial recall election was held on October 7, and the results were certified on November 14, 2003, making Davis the first governor recalled in the history of California, and just the second in U.S. history (the first was North Dakota's 1921 recall of Lynn Frazier). In 1988, a recall election had been scheduled for Arizona governor Evan Mecham, but he was impeached, convicted, and removed from office before his qualified recall election could occur. California is one of 19 states that allow recalls. The third U.S. gubernatorial recall election occurred in Wisconsin in 2012.