Costa Mesa, California (CNN)-- California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a decisive answer to the question of whether voters would penalize those who enacted strict policies aimed at slowing the coronavirus pandemic, triumphing over an effort to recall him Tuesday.

Newsom faced the first recall election in California in 18 years. At one point, weeks before the election, he appeared to be in serious enough jeopardy that Democrats decided to dispatch President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign for him.

Republicans sought a replay of 2003, when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger attracted support across ideological lines and voters decided to boot then-Gov. Gray Davis. This time, though, the party's leading candidate, talk radio host Larry Elder, stuck much closer to conservative orthodoxy -- making it difficult to attract the sort of broad bipartisan support that it takes for a GOP candidate to win in deep-blue California.

And his long history of incendiary comments -- combined with the odd recall system that virtually guaranteed Elder would become governor if Newsom was recalled -- to energize those who had largely tuned the election out and might not have cast their ballots.