For the second time in the state’s history, California has triggered a recall election with Governor Gavin Newsom’s figurative head on the chopping block.

As I explained in the video below, Newsom finds himself here after his dismal handling of the COVID-19 pandemic brought more pain and suffering to the people of California than was absolutely necessary, all while he seemed to be wholly unconcerned with obeying his own lockdown orders.

The recall election was made official when Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber that the necessary 1,719,900 verified signatures to trigger a recall effort were gathered. She then sent an official letter to Department of Finance Director Keely Martin Bosler the notice that a recall election was officially on.

“The Department of Finance, in consultation with county elections officials and the Secretary of State, must estimate the costs of the recall election and submit the estimate to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee by August 5, 2021,” the letter stated. “The Department of Finance’s estimates must include the costs that would be incurred if the recall election is held as a special election and if it is consolidated with the next regularly scheduled election, and must include expenses for verifying signatures, printing ballots and voter information guides, and operating polling places. As required by law, the Department of Finance’s estimate of recall costs must be posted on the Secretary of State’s website and printed in the state voter information guide.”

So now that the recall election has been triggered, will Newsom lose his job?

It should trouble Californians to know that he still may very well keep it. In fact, bookmakers are throwing down bets that he will at a 5/1 chance he’ll be removed from office. To be sure, the odds are stacked against those who do wish him gone as over 50 percent of the voting public would have to vote against him. When he was elected, Newsom at 62 percent of the vote.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. During the period where people could withdraw their signatures from the recall petition, only 43 people did so out of nearly two million. If that’s any indication as to how Californians are feeling, then Newsom should begin sweating now.

It’s definitely not going to help that Newsom was recently was discovered to have misled the public on just how far he went to protect the state from wildfires, which was that he pretty much did nothing at all while telling Californians he did.

“The investigation found Newsom overstated, by an astounding 690%, the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns in the very forestry projects he said needed to be prioritized to protect the state’s most vulnerable communities,” wrote CapRadio’s Scott Rodd. “Newsom has claimed that 35 ‘priority projects’ carried out as a result of his executive order resulted in fire prevention work on 90,000 acres. But the state’s own data show the actual number is 11,399.”

So we have a governor that flaunts his own lockdown rules and proceeds to lie to Californians about what he’s doing to protect the state from one of the most devastating events that happen to it.

I sincerely doubt this will be the last thing we hear about Newsom’s dirty dealings in the dark during this recall election. So far, Newsom’s response has been to release an ad promising to use taxpayer dollars to provide free health care, which is like bribing someone with their own credit card. However, his opponents have enough ammo to use against Newsom for weeks.

Is it enough to kill Newsom’s momentum? Time will tell, and it’s going to tell us pretty quickly.