Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer (R) has signed a recall petition aimed at California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), the latest sign that the campaign is gaining momentum — and that, if successful, Newsom could face a formidable opponent.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Saturday:

San Diego’s former Republican mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Saturday he had signed a petition to recall Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Faulconer told The San Diego Union-Tribune as recently as last month that he is considering his own run for governor. He served seven years as San Diego’s mayor.

Faulconer also tweeted his support for the recall effort:

In a Facebook post, Faulconer said:

It’s a new year. We need a new governor. I’m signing the petition to recall Gavin Newsom.

Jobs are leaving, homelessness is skyrocketing, and the state can’t even do the basics like issue unemployment checks to people who at this very moment are struggling to get by. We know that California is better than this, and we have the power to make a change.

Every Californian fed up with the governor’s hypocrisy and failures should sign the recall petition. Either through a recall or a regular election, it’s time to start holding the governor accountable.

Faulconer won a special election in 2014 after the previous Democratic mayor was ousted in a sexual harassment scandal. He was later re-elected and served for nearly seven years. He left in December after reaching the two-term limit.

Though he was the only Republican mayor of a major American city, Faulconer often tacked to the left. In 2015, for example, he joined Democrats in threatening ton boycott Indiana over that state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was a response to a spate of lawsuits by LGBTQ activists against Christian business owners. Then-Gov. Mike Pence (R) asked for changes to the law to clarify that it was not intended to discriminate against LGTBQ individuals.

The effort to recall Newsom reported last month that it was halfway to the threshold of 1.5 million signatures needed by March 17 to qualify for the next ballot.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.