“One day before the Gavin Newsom recall, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy belief system are busy attempting to invalidate the election results before they even come in – but they’re torn on what exactly comes next. Although most people likely assume QAnon has its deepest roots in places like Florida or Texas, the extremist ideology has made significant inroads in California. It’s particularly noticeable in Orange County and San Diego, where people sporting QAnon flags and shirts have been seen at anti-lockdown and anti-Newsom protests over the past year.”

“In the lead-up to the Newsom recall, anons have glommed onto a December 2018 Q post in response to a commenter asking, ‘Will voter fraud in CA ever be brought to light?’ ‘Watch CA,’ Q wrote back. Three years on, some are convinced this means that Newsom will fraudulently win this recall election and, confronted with overwhelming evidence of this alleged fraud, Californians will kick off a national audit that gets Trump back into office. ‘DETHRONING Newsom is THE catalyst for the MAIN EVENT,’ wrote QAnon influencer John Sabal (who goes by QAnon John) on Telegram last week. If you were struck by the dubiousness of California’s 10 million-plus registered Democrats suddenly being swayed by this argument, keep this in mind: Many QAnon believers think California is majority Republican. In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, QAnon discourse was full of baseless assertions that Trump won California; in reality, Biden received 11 million votes to Trump’s 6 million” – SFGate.