A few hours before the opening of the polling stations, Tuesday, September 14, in California, Larry Elder had already conceded his defeat, although very involuntarily. On its campaign site, readers were directed to another page stating that ” statistical analyzes “Had allowed” detect fraud ”In the holding of the poll: Democrat Gavin Newsom would therefore be able to continue his mandate as governor of the state …
Voters still had twelve hours to vote on the issue that had occupied California for months: whether or not to remove their governor. Without waiting, Mr. Elder, the main Republican competitor of Mr. Newsom, announced his intention to challenge the results in court, according to the scenario tested by Donald Trump on the evening of the presidential election of 2020.
Larry Elder was not wrong. Gavin Newsom easily survived the Republicans’ attempt to remove him from his mandate – fourteen months before the next election – at a cost of $ 276 million and for the most diverse reasons: his opposition to the death penalty, his support to undocumented immigrants, the amount of taxes, the number of homeless, its strict management of the epidemic (closure of schools and compulsory vaccination for teachers). Without forgetting his dinner with lobbyists in a three-star restaurant in Napa Valley, in November 2020, without masks or distancing, an event that has become central in the “recall”: the symbol of “Elitism” democrats.
Ample victory
What Larry Elder probably did not foresee was the magnitude of the outgoing governor’s victory. After counting 59% of the ballots, the no to recall showed 67% of the votes (against 33%). Barely an hour after the polls closed, Mr Newsom appeared on the screens, his voice tight with emotion. “We said yes to science, yes to vaccines, yes to the end of this pandemic. ” The governor, a national figure since legalizing gay marriage in San Francisco, often touted as presidential, cited his “Political hero”, Robert Kennedy, and warned his compatriots. “We may have beaten Trump, but Trumpism is not dead in this country. ”
In the Democratic camp, the relief was immense. The left panicked in early August when a poll assured that the yes to impeachment had exceeded the no. Worse, one opponent stood out clearly among the forty-six contenders for the governor’s succession: radio host Larry Elder, a provocateur who built his popularity on an iconoclastic profile. Black, conservative, libertarian tendency (he advocates reducing the minimum wage to zero).
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