No, Larry Elder Didn’t “Win”

One of the story lines of the California recall election is the emergence of Larry Elder as a new force for California Republicans. This is enhanced by his large lead in the “replacement” part of the ballot. This is usually reported something like this:

Candidate	Party	Votes	Pct
Larry A. Elder	Rep	2,402,420	47.0%
Kevin Paffrath	Dem	502,431	9.8%
Kevin L. Faulconer	Rep	440,042	8.6%
Brandon M. Ross	Dem	286,901	5.6%
John Cox	Rep	225,404	4.4%
Kevin Kiley	Rep	162,113	3.2%
Jacqueline McGowan	Dem	147,446	2.9%
Joel Ventresca	Dem	135,932	2.7%
Daniel Watts	Dem	118,491	2.3%
Holly L. Baade	Dem	66,860	1.3%
Other		623,925	12.2%

Looks pretty impressive, huh? 47%, not too bad. But that ignores the fact that a huge percentage of voters skipped that question on the ballot. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats encouraged “No” voters to ignore part 2 of the recall. If we include those who didn’t vote for anyone, the table looks like this:

Candidate	Party	Votes	Pct
None	(Dem)	4,112,225	44.6%
Larry A. Elder	Rep	2,402,420	26.0%
Kevin Paffrath	Dem	502,431	5.4%
Kevin L. Faulconer	Rep	440,042	4.8%
Brandon M. Ross	Dem	286,901	3.1%
John Cox	Rep	225,404	2.4%
Kevin Kiley	Rep	162,113	1.8%
Jacqueline McGowan	Dem	147,446	1.6%
Joel Ventresca	Dem	135,932	1.5%
Daniel Watts	Dem	118,491	1.3%
Holly L. Baade	Dem	66,860	0.7%
Other		623,925	6.8%

Doesn’t look so impressive for Elder now, does it? It’s pretty safe to assume that nearly all of the None voters are Democrats who support Newsom (why would you vote for the recall but then not vote for a replacement candidate?). So head-to-head, he lost 44% – 26%. If you take the votes for other Republicans and allocate them to Elder, and give Newsom all of the None votes and other Democratic votes, Elder lost 60% – 37.7%.

Elder may be the front-runner for California Republicans. But if that’s the case, he just lost to Newsom in a landslide.