Radio personality emerges as front-runner in race for governor
Conservative talk-show host grows campaign to recall Democrat
SACRAMENTO — For a generation, Larry Elder has been an AM radio fixture for millions of Californians, the voice they could count on when they were fed up with liberal Democratic politics. Those living in the country illegally? Deport them. Affirmative action? End it. Equal pay? The glass ceiling doesn’t exist.
Now Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” could end up as the next governor of the nation’s most populous state. As the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom has become a dead heat among likely voters, Elder has emerged almost overnight as the front-runner in the campaign to replace him.
Fueled by a combination of arcane recall rules, name recognition and partisan desperation, his rise to the top of a pack of some four dozen challengers has stunned and unnerved many in both parties.
Democrats call him the agent of a far-right power grab. Republican rivals say he is an inexperienced, debate-dodging opportunist. Orrin Heatlie, a retired sheriff’s sergeant who is the recall’s lead proponent, said he and his fellow activists are voting for someone else.
This month, the Sacramento Bee and two Republican candidates — Kevin Faulconer, a former San Diego mayor, and Caitlyn Jenner, a television personality and former Olympian — demanded that Elder drop out of the race after an ex-girlfriend of his said he brandished a gun at her while high on marijuana during a 2015 breakup.
“We were having a conversation, and he walked to the drawer and took out a .45 and checked to see that it was loaded,” Alexandra Datig, 51, said in an interview. Datig, who worked as an escort in the 1990s and now runs Front Page Index, a conservative website, said: “He wanted me to know he was ready to be very threatening to me. He’s a talented entertainer, but he shouldn’t be governor.”
Elder, 69, did not respond to requests for comment about Datig’s claims, but he did tweet that he has “never brandished a gun at anyone,” adding, “I am not going to dignify this with a response.”
The onslaught has come as a Sept. 14 election deadline nears. Ballots have been mailed to all active registered voters, asking whether the governor should be replaced, and, if so, by whom.
Constitutional scholars say Elder’s sudden ascent is an example of all that is wrong with the recall process, which requires a majority to recall a governor but only a plurality of votes for the replacement candidate to win. With 46 challengers on the ballot, 49.9 percent of the electorate could vote to keep Newsom, and he could still lose to a replacement who is supported by only a tiny sliver of voters. Polls show a rout by Newsom among all Californians but a far tighter race among likely voters. Elder leads 46 challengers on the ballot with about 20 percent of the likely vote.
Newsom, whose fate rides on turnout, has made a foil of Elder, a “small-l libertarian” who reliably agitates the governor’s base with statements such as that the minimum wage should be zero.
“The leading candidate thinks climate change is a hoax, believes we need more offshore oil drilling, more fracking, does not believe a woman has the right to choose, actually came out against Roe v. Wade, does not believe in a minimum wage,” Newsom has told supporters.
“Don’t paint me as some wild-eyed radical,” Elder said in a recent interview. “I’m running because of crime, homelessness, the rising cost of living and the outrageous decisions made during COVID that shut down the state.”