A Democrat edged out Larry Elder on the Newsom recall ballot in a single county. Here’s where

Republican talk radio host Larry Elder is leading on the California recall election replacement ballot in almost every county, except one that’s breaking for a registered Democrat, Kevin Paffrath.

Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t going anywhere. He defeated the recall in a landslide, drove up Democratic turnout and in many cases persuaded his voters not bother choosing anyone among the 46 candidates on the recall’s replacement ballot.

Of the 9.1 million ballots counted by Wednesday afternoon, only 5 million included a choice for who should replace Newsom. Statewide, Elder has claimed the biggest share of replacement votes, picking up 47% of them.

San Francisco strongly voted against the recall, with nearly 87% voting no.

The city slightly favored Paffrath on the second question. He came to fame dispensing real estate advice to his 1.7 million YouTube followers, as the replacement candidate. With 21% of the vote as of Wednesday morning, Paffrath led Elder by 646 votes.

Of the 267,432 votes counted thus far in San Francisco, Paffrath received 20,077 votes, compared to Elder’s 19,431 votes. Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer was the only other candidate to receive more than 10,000 votes.

Paffrath fashioned himself as a “JFK-style Democrat,” and offered some extremely ambitious solutions to California’s problems. He has pledged to build a pipelines to bring in water from the Mississippi River to alleviate California’s drought, and he has vowed to use the California National Guard to clear all homeless people off the streets within 60 days.

The Democrat from Ventura chastised Elder for getting into the election in a tweet Tuesday night after the race had been called. Paffrath suggested Elder was too conservative for California voters, giving Newsom an opportunity to paint the recall as a Republican power grab.

“Well Larry ... Ya gave Newsom an out and made him win. Don’t do it again in 22. Let the moderates fight Newsom on policy so he burns to the ground and then we can fight next time. Get out of the way in the 22 primaries; or we’ll just repeat this result,” Paffrath wrote.

Paffrath said in an interview with KUSI News that he intends to stay in politics after the recall election, though he left it vague as to whether he would challenge Newsom in the 2022 midterm election.

“As long as we’ve got momentum, I’m all in for 2022. If for some reason we didn’t get the momentum, we’re gearing up for that clean slate in 2026. But either way, I’m not going away,” Paffrath said.