When you look at the by-county patterns in the 2003 California recall, they are similar to the 2002 election for Governor.
The urban counties, except for San Diego and Orange, voted against the recall and for Davis.
However, in the counties which went for the recall, the percentage of the yes-on-recall vote was even greater than the percentage who voted for Bill Simon, the Republican, in 2002.
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Non-urban voters appear to have been the main force of the recall.
Now, compare the first map with one of the vote for Governor conditional on recall. Schwarzenegger wins a plurality in every county except eight: Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz.
[ thanks to JM for pointing out the maps ]
Update: see also a nice visualization of the same data.
