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Thomas L. Knapp| Palm Beach Post

As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moves to extend a federal eviction moratorium that (including its original CARES Act version) has now been in place for most of 18 months and that President Joe Biden himself concedes is "not likely to pass constitutional muster," most of the public rhetoric and advocacy boils down to "what about the tenants?"

That's understandable. Nobody -- at least nobody who's ever faced the prospect of homelessness and has any heart at all -- wants to see tenants kicked to the curb with nowhere to go, especially tenants who, through no fault of their own, have been pushed into a financial corner by nearly a year-and-a-half of lockdowns, business closures, and other fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much less often asked, though, is the question "what about the landlords?" When that question does come up (and it's coming up in the courts again as the National Apartment Association and other landlord groups sue for compensation pursuant to the Fifth Amendment's "takings" clause) one can almost literally hear the world's smallest violin tuning up in the background.

I'm aware of, and reasonably well versed in, the centuries-long arguments over the ethics of rent and of property in land. I don't aim to settle those arguments here.

Given the long history of land ownership and home/apartment rental in the United States, though, it seems to me that the plaintiffs have a good case, and that the American "landlord class" deserves a far more sympathetic ear than it's had lately.

I've been a renter for most of my adult life, including times when I could have swung a down payment and qualified for a mortgage to own instead of rent. Renting made more sense for various reasons, including my somewhat itinerant lifestyle -- following jobs, following love, etc.

Most of my landlords haven't been giant corporations with deep pockets. They've been regular people who worked hard, put their money into real estate down payments, and tried to keep that real estate occupied by paying tenants until the property was paid off and might perhaps turn a profit or be sold. And even the giant corporations with deep pockets are providing a service to willing customers. They're not charities and shouldn't be expected to act like charities.

During the eviction moratoria, landlords haven't shed themselves of responsibility for keeping the water running, keeping the heat and air conditioning in working order, and making mortgage payments. They're still paying, or trying to pay, those costs. But they're not getting the rent that tenants freely agreed to pay before moving in.

Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

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Point of View: In defense of landlords, evictions shouldn't all fall on their shoulders - Palm Beach Post

Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a long-awaited linchpin of their drive to protect voting rights, introducing legislation that would make it easier for the federal government to block state election rules found to be discriminatory to nonwhite voters.

House leaders expect to pass the bill, named the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act after the late civil rights icon, during a rare August session next week. They say it would restore the full force of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after a pair of adverse Supreme Court rulings and that it would help combat a wave of restrictive new election laws in Republican-led states.

Today, old battles have become new again as we face the most pernicious assault on the right to vote in generations, said Representative Terri Sewell, the bills chief author and a Democrat from Alabamas civil rights belt, where Mr. Lewis and others staged a national campaign for voting rights in the 1960s. Its clear: federal oversight is urgently needed.

But like other voting rights legislation to come before Congress this year, its chances of passing the evenly divided Senate are exceedingly narrow. Only one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is likely to support the legislation, leaving Democrats far short of the 60 votes they would need to break a Republican filibuster and send the bill to President Bidens desk.

Senate Republicans already blocked Democrats other marquee voting rights bill, the For the People Act, which would establish national mandates for early and mail-in voting and end gerrymandering of congressional districts. And while Democratic leaders in the Senate have vowed more votes on the matter in September, unless all 50 Democrats unite in a long-shot bid to change Senate filibuster rules, they are headed for an identical outcome.

The legislation introduced by Ms. Sewell on Tuesday is an effort to restore key pieces of the landmark 1965 voting bill struck down or weakened by the Supreme Court over the last decade. Doing so, its proponents say, would make it far harder for states to restrict voting access in the future.

The most consequential ruling dates to 2013, when the justices effectively invalidated a section of the law that required states and localities with a history of discriminatory voting rules to clear any changes to their elections policies with the federal government. At the time, the justices said that the formula used to determine which states were subject to clearance was out of date and invited Congress to update it.

The bill also attempts to respond to a decision just last month in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee that effectively made it more difficult to challenge state voting laws as discriminatory in court using a different provision of the law.

Voting rights activists fear the two decisions will make it far easier for those in power to marginalize voters of color at the ballot box and during the once-in-a-decade redistricting process underway this year. Just this year, more than a dozen Republican-led states have enacted restrictive new voting laws.

We have seen an upsurge in changes to voting laws that make it more difficult for minority citizens to vote and that is even before we confront a round of decennial redistricting where jurisdictions may draw new maps that have the purpose or effect of diluting or retrogressing minority voting strength, Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, told a House panel on Monday.

Republicans joined Democrats in large numbers to reauthorize the full Voting Rights Act as recently as 2006. But since the high courts 2013 decision, they have shown little interest in updating the statute, arguing that discrimination is largely a thing of the past and that the federal government ought to stay out of states rights to set their own election rules.

Asked about the bill on Tuesday, Russell Dye, a spokesman for Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, accused Democrats of ignoring real problems like the crisis of Afghanistan, the influx of migrants at the southern border and rising crime in favor of pushing a radical far-left political agenda.

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House Democrats Introduce John Lewis Voting Rights Legislation - The New York Times

During a hearing of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee about Afghanistan in May, I asked a senior Defense Department official if the U.S. military would return if the Afghan government asked the United States for help. The official replied: I am reluctant to get into a hypothetical. My committee colleagues asked several thoughtful questions about Afghanistans future during the proceedings. We all got the same answer.

Shortly thereafter, I joined 10 other members of Congress in writing a letter to President Joe Biden outlining recommendations for improving stability in Afghanistan in light of the decision to withdraw. We never received a reply from the White House.

During a hearing of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee about Afghanistan in May, I asked a senior Defense Department official if the U.S. military would return if the Afghan government asked the United States for help. The official replied: I am reluctant to get into a hypothetical. My committee colleagues asked several thoughtful questions about Afghanistans future during the proceedings. We all got the same answer.

Shortly thereafter, I joined 10 other members of Congress in writing a letter to President Joe Biden outlining recommendations for improving stability in Afghanistan in light of the decision to withdraw. We never received a reply from the White House.

I suppose we are now experiencing the consequences of not getting into a hypothetical. Public executions and forced marriages are reportedly back. People are fleeing. The Taliban are in Kabul, and the government has fallen. This is a catastrophe.

This negligence was par for the course for the last U.S. administration. I am disappointed to see it now. At minimum, the Biden administration owed our Afghan allies of 20 years a real plan. They also owed it to our military service members and their families, particularly the men and women in uniform and their families who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Not to mention the women and girls of Afghanistan who are now experiencing a devastating new reality.

During my time in Congress, I have seen attention on Afghanistan wax and wane. Before the United States collectively moves on, I want to explore where we go from here.

To start, we need to remind ourselves why we were in Afghanistan in the first place: to dismantle al Qaeda and their enablers, deny them a safe haven, and stop them from plotting and planning against the United States. The Taliban offered a safe haven to extremist groups in the past. With the Taliban having taken Kabul, it is only a matter of time before Afghanistan turns into another extremist haven.

While U.S. troops were protecting the homeland from another attack, they fought for human rights, stymied the Talibans repressive ideology that the vast majority of Afghans do not want, and prevented a humanitarian catastrophe. Had they remained longer, they also would have ensured a safe exit for interpreters, journalists, and activists, many of whom may never get out.

The United States also risks ceding influence to Russia and China. China could forge a partnership with the Taliban to complete its genocide of Uyghur Muslims. Pakistani officials are celebrating the victory of their preferred strain of extremism, and some of Irans militias have marched back from Syria into Afghanistan.

Given the current situation, U.S. diplomats must refocus on what will bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and on providing options to Biden for conducting airstrikes, withholding foreign aid, or putting boots back on the ground. If extremist groups like al Qaeda are reconstituting or committing atrocities, we are returning to Afghanistan.

In the future, we must take extra care to establish and monitor development assistance programs so they are as effective as possible. Before last week, government watchdogs frequently reported rampant fraud and waste in Afghanistan. U.S. taxpayers financed schools that were not built and roads that were never repaired. We donated equipment that the Afghan military did not need. Now, the Taliban have stolen that equipment and munitions, and they are stronger for it. Economic and security assistance should never be an afterthought.

Finally, regional engagement. Central Asia is not exactly a hot-ticket destination for diplomats, but we need these dedicated public servants to lay the groundwork for the U.S. military to use existing bases from which to conduct potential airstrikes. We will also need partnerships for intelligence missions, a place to establish a consulate if the embassy in Kabul remains closed, and a plan for resettling the surge of refugees.

We must also persuade Afghanistans neighbors to not fund their preferred factions within the country. We must hold this lineor Afghanistan will collapse. We need a strategy that prioritizes our diplomatic, development, and defense objectives so that we can condition regional foreign aid in pursuit of degrading al Qaeda and ensuring Afghanistans stability.

The administration has addressed some of the challenges with the Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans, but we need to increase our efforts hundredfold. We should also reflect on what our service members have done in the past 20 years. There has not been another major attack on U.S. soil. Al Qaeda is not thriving in Afghanistan, as it once was. Until last week, 50 percent of the American University of Afghanistans students were women. That would not have been possible without us. Sadly, at another university in Herat, female students have reportedly been banned from campus already.

Critics may say the past few months were an indictment of our ability to train the Afghan military. I would say instead: Look at what 2,500 U.S. soldiers, intelligence, and air support working with the Afghan military were able to hold back for so many years. The consequences of our decision to abandon Afghanistan are now on full display for the world to see. It didnt have to be this way.

I pray for all U.S. troops and personnel. We must spare no cost to ensure their safe return home.

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I'm a Democrat Who Opposed the Withdrawal. This Catastrophe Is Why. - Foreign Policy

Kevin Paffrath, Kevin Paffrath smiles for a selfie in front of the California State Capitol in Sacramento on Friday, July 16, 2021.

Kevin Paffrath via AP

Last year at this time, Kevin Paffrath was focused on his YouTube channel, where his half-million-plus followers could tune in for daily commentary on housing, stocks and stimulus checks. It earned him nearly $10 million over the last 12 months.

Now, the 29-year-old former real estate broker is following Gov. Gavin Newsom around his home state. It's the best way he can think of to draw attention to his unlikely effort to replace Newsom in the upcoming recall election on Sept. 14.

Paffrath is a registered Democrat and self-declared centrist who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. While he's highly critical of Newsom and says he's been a "failed leader," Paffrath is equally concerned that the Democratic Party has no emergency plan.

Should more than half of California voters support the recall on their ballots, the next governor would be whichever of the 46 successor candidates gets the most votes, making it much easier for an outsider to win. Paffrath is one of the nine candidates listed as a Democrat, but party leaders are urging a "No" vote to the recall effort and saying voters should skip the second question asking who should be governor if the recall succeeds.

"It was mind-blowing to us that they didn't put at least somebody in, so that way, worst case, they had a hail mary," Paffrath said in an interview on Friday over a coffee, after attending a Newsom press event in San Francisco.

In an early August poll by Survey USA, Paffrath had the most votes in the field of replacements, with 27%. The next six candidates are all Republicans, including conservative talk show host Larry Elder and reality TV star and former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner.

"We think in the last two weeks of this campaign if the recall looks more and more likely, the Democratic party will be forced to pick a Hail Mary back-up candidate," Paffrath said. "Given that we're No. 1 in the polls, we hope that's us."

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks with media at a long-standing encampment along Highway 80 in Berkeley, California, August 9, 2021.

John G. Mabanglo | Pool | Reuters

Democrats are right to be nervous.

A poll conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Los Angeles Times in late July showed 51% of registered voters opposed the recall, with 36% in favor. But among likely voters, the gap favoring Newsom's retention narrowed to three percentage points.

The anti-recall movement has raised about $51 million, almost eight times as much as the side trying to oust Newsom. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has contributed $3 million in support of the governor.

Donors can contribute an unlimited amount for or against the recall, but only up to $32,400 in support of any specific replacement candidate. Paffrath said he's raised close to $400,000 and has put in about $200,000 of his own money. The average donation is $70, he said.

"We don't have the war chest that Newsom does, so we have to do everything in our power with grassroots and social media," Paffrath said.

For example, Paffrath paid his brother-in-law, an app developer, to build his "Meet Kevin" app. And he's trying to get in front of the media as much as possible. Most of his ad spending is via text message to let voters know there's a Democratic alternative.

On Friday, Paffrath hung out outside Manny's restaurant in San Francisco as Newsom spoke inside to the press. Dressed in a navy suit with a purple tie, Paffrath made himself easy to spot for reporters. He said he's careful not to be disruptive at the events.

"We have to combat, this 'Oh yeah he's a YouTuber, he's a prankster,'" Paffrath said. "We stand there very respectfully and reporters recognize us. They talk to us."

From San Francisco, he's following Newsom to Los Angeles and San Diego, and possibly beyond.

The recall effort picked up momentum during the pandemic as frustration mounted about the state's shutdown of schools and small businesses, and the slow pace of the reopening even as Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations plummeted.

Newsom critics pounced at the opportunity to highlight the worsening homeless problem and increasing crime rates while taxes and living costs remained among the highest in the country. Paffrath said he wasn't an initial proponent of the recall and didn't get involved until it was well underway.

"The reason I think folks are frustrated is we pay our taxes, then we look up to see what our government is doing for us with the services we're paying for," he said. "And we see people dying on the street. We see blight. That's why people are leaving."

Paffrath, who lives with his wife and two young sons in Ventura, about 70 miles from Los Angeles, has made addressing the homeless issue his top agenda item. His proposal is to build new emergency facilities and lease commercial and office buildings, including many that have been vacated during the pandemic, to set up mass spaces with cots and small rooms, supported by staffing from the National Guard.

His aim is to get all of California's 160,000 homeless people off the streets in 60 days at an eventual cost of $10 per person per day, covering food, medical support and bathrooms.

Paffrath has equally ambitious some may say outlandish goals for new types of "future" schools, a system of underground tunnels to alleviate traffic problems and the building of Las Vegas-style casinos as part of a plan to fully legalize gambling.

He also recognizes the existential threat posed by fires and droughts. He advocates spending on controlled burns and a pipeline from the Mississippi River to double water flow to the Colorado River. When it comes to solar plants, he wants to incentivize companies to stay in California rather than going elsewhere.

"I'm tired of hearing about Tesla building solar panels in New York and Nevada," he said. "Those should be in California."

Paffrath's fans are used to hearing him opine on such matters. He now has almost 150,000 Twitter followers and 1.7 million on YouTube. Regular topics include interest rates, the crypto economy and politics.

Paffrath got his start in real estate a little over a decade ago by teaching people how to invest in the market. He became a broker and started buying property, then took his teaching experience and market knowledge to YouTube. By 2018 was making enough money a couple thousand dollars a day to let his broker license expire and to get out of sales.

At the coffee shop on Friday, he pulled out his phone and navigated to his YouTube earnings dashboard. Over the past year, the page showed, his ad revenue on the site topped $3.5 million. Affiliate revenue and money he makes from courses on building wealth brought in an additional $6 million or so, he said.

Kevin Paffrath on the campaign trail

Ari Levy | CNBC

But his focus now is on politics. Paffrath said he'll run in 2022 even the recall is unsuccessful or if another replacement candidate wins. That's as far out as he's projecting.

"I don't want to be a career politician," he said. "I want to fix California."

He also wants to assure Democrats that he's not just using their party label because it gives him the best chance to win. With a legislature that's three-quarters Democratic, he said it's important to start on things that the majority cares deeply about, like the homeless problem.

Control of the U.S. Senate could also be at stake. Dianne Feinstein, the state's senior senator, is the oldest member of the chamber at 88. She's not up for reelection until 2024, and questions have been swirling around whether she'll retire before then.

If so, the governor would get to pick her temporary successor. The Senate is currently at a 50-50 split, with Vice President Kamala Harris in position to cast deciding votes when needed.

Paffrath made it clear he would pick a Democrat.

"I'm not going to burn the party," he said. "I don't want people to think that just because I'm a recall candidate I'm going to go in there and do what Republicans say they want to do, start cutting things and throwing around the furniture. It's not going to work. You've got to respect the legislature."

WATCH: California Gov. Newsom faces recall

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This 29-year-old YouTube millionaire has a good chance to be the next governor of California - CNBC

Conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder speaks to supporters during a campaign stop in Norwalk, Calif. on July 13, 2021. | AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File

California

Libertarian Larry Elder could well ride soaring conservative enthusiasm to become the first Black governor of deeply Democratic California.

By JEREMY B. WHITE and CARLA MARINUCCI

08/13/2021 07:25 PM EDT

OAKLAND Gov. Gavin Newsom for months refused to acknowledge the Republican recall candidates. Then Larry Elder came along.

A conservative media fixture after decades on the air, Elder used his fame to springboard to the front of the pack of Republicans vying to replace Newsom. The Democratic governor has responded by making Elder the face of recall Republicans, portraying him as an extremist whose views are drastically mismatched with the average California voter.

Newsom's message: It's either him or me.

Elder opposes gun control and any minimum wage, believes climate change policies are not worth the cost, has assailed Roe v. Wade, dismisses gender wage gaps as a myth and maintains that welfare and fatherless families pose far greater threats to society than systemic racism. Those views make him an easy target for Newsom and Democratic allies.

Despite that disjuncture, the libertarian Elder could well ride soaring conservative enthusiasm to become the first Black governor of deeply Democratic California, thanks to an unusual recall system that enables a candidate with a small plurality to become the state's chief executive if voters decide they've had enough of their current leader.

The races final weeks may come down to Elders appeal among conservatives versus Newsoms success in rallying Democrats against Elders candidacy.

Why is it important to focus on Larry? Well, to put in perspective whats at stake here, Newsom told supporters this week on a get-out-the-vote call with Reps. Barbara Lee and Karen Bass. Newsom spent minutes recounting Elders statements to argue hes even more extreme than Trump in many respects.

Elder, 69, has vaulted ahead of other Republican contenders thanks to the years he spent familiarizing himself to the public as a Los Angeles-based radio host, a prolific author of columns and books and a regular Fox News commentator. He has endeared himself to conservatives with a contrarian and combative outlook that rejects the prevailing wisdom in liberal Los Angeles and among many fellow African Americans so much so that local groups unsuccessfully organized to push him off the air in the 1990s.

Elder regularly shares video messages to supporters in which he wears a white bathrobe monogrammed with RR for robe rage. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He has consistently espoused a libertarian philosophy that frames an overgenerous welfare state as the fundamental shortcoming of American politics and driver of disintegrating families. He is fond of saying that women have been incentivized to marry the government and that Black Americans have been crippled by a victicrat mentality, a term he says he invented to describe "those who whine, bitch, moan that outside forces hold them back and hold them down."

Those stances have largely aligned Elder with the Republican Party. Elder said he has voted for Republican presidential candidates through former President Donald Trump, although he was lukewarm on Trumps candidacy. But he has also broken with the party by advocating the legalization of drugs, backing same-sex marriage long before it was mainstream and writing in one of his books that both Democrats and Republicans have blood on their hands for supporting government programs like Medicare, Social Security, farm subsidies and public spending on education.

Despite his sometimes idiosyncratic beliefs, Elder immediately distinguished himself as the Republican frontrunner. He managed in weeks to outraise Republicans who have been running for months. He has piled up endorsements from California conservative groups like the august Lincoln Club of Orange County, an early recall supporter that has sunk $180,000 into recalling Newsom.

We could just sense a real excitement behind him. He has excellent name ID in the state, especially for people who are politically savvy and listened to his radio over the years, said Teresa Hernandez, president of the Lincoln Club of Orange County. It wasnt like some guy who just came on the scene and stuck his finger in the air and did his talking points based on the latest poll.

Elder is a political neophyte compared to the current and former Republican officeholders in the race. But his lack of elected office is an asset to supporters who said long exposure to Elder helped build familiarity and trust. They described him as more authentic than Republicans who have spent years in politics, speaking to anti-establishment skepticism that has pervaded Californias Republican base.

Especially in California, the establishment has earned a reputation of being what we would describe as RINOs [Republicans In Name Only]. Theyre weak on some of the issues and in a lot of ways theyve sold their souls out to donors and lobby groups and folks who just dont resonate with the people, California College Republicans Chair Will Donahue said after his board unanimously endorsed Elder. I think a lot of people were excited for the first time about Larry running.

Elder grew up in South Central Los Angeles and graduated from Crenshaw High School before heading east to Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School. He was once a registered Democrat in Ohio, but became an independent voter when he moved to California in 1994 and switched to the Republican Party in 2003, according to Los Angeles County records.

Controversy and backlash have followed Elder from the start of his media career. In the 1990s when Elder was on KABCs afternoon drive-time airwaves downplaying racism, inveighing against affirmative action, excoriating Jesse Jackson and proclaiming O.J. Simpsonss guilt Angelenos organized an attempted boycott of what they called Elders hate speech and circulated fliers deriding Elder as the White Man's Poster Boy. The station halved Elders airtime and some advertisers fled.

I think he was one to easily offend by virtue of seeking to make caricatures of those of us who were fighting for the basic rights and liberties that are associated with the struggle for social justice on behalf of African Americans and others. I think he built a career on that, said Los Angeles City Councilor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was then starting his political career. His politics have not substantially changed. He perhaps has gotten more slick about it, or attempted to, but we see him for who or what he is.

Elders allies rallied. Conservative talk show host Dennis Prager, who had recruited Elder to radio, championed his cause. Neoconservative author David Horowitz raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a Keep Larry Elder on the Air television advertising blitz. Elders blooming notoriety led to television commentator appearances and a profile on 60 Minutes, and he secured national syndication. In the early 2000s, he even ventured into short-lived television ventures such as "Moral Court" and "The Larry Elder Show."

Some of Elder's fans are now eager to vote for him. But his surge hasnt just energized conservatives. It has reoriented Newsoms campaign by providing a useful foil to rally Democrats.

California recall ballots ask two questions: whether to retain Newsom and with whom to replace him. If a majority votes to recall Newsom, the replacement candidate with the most votes would become the next governor. That means Elder could claim the governorship with a plurality a potential outcome Newsom has highlighted again and again.

The governor has largely hewed to a two-step strategy of touting his record while dismissing the recall as a Trump-aligned distraction that could derail Californias progress. That effort to project gubernatorial competency has failed to galvanize Democrats. By contrast, Republicans are highly motivated to vote.

Newsom has recently sought to correct that imbalance and boost Democratic turnout by constantly invoking Elder. Whenever Newsom is asked about the tightening race, he warns about the potentially dire consequences of defeat by outlining Elders beliefs.

His campaign has highlighted Elder in 2008 calling climate change a crock (Elder now says he believes human-caused climate change is real but has assailed alarmism and renewable energy mandates) and equating Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 election with Democrats saying Russian interference cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 contest.

Coronavirus management has also taken center stage. Newsom is facing a recall in large part because of a backlash to restrictions and shutdown, but the governor has leaned lately into an assertive government role that includes requiring vaccines for state workers, teachers and health care workers. Newsom has warned Elders opposition to mask and vaccine mandates would undo Californias progress in subduing the pandemic, and his campaign has circulated a recent clip of Elder giving airtime to a vaccine skeptic.

Larry Elder is an anti-vax conspiracy spreader not the guy you want in office while Delta rages, Newsom wrote in a recent fundraising email entitled Larry Elder. Now hear this: Larry Elder is just 2 points from being our next governor. Sorry to scare you, but its true.

While Elder earlier told The Sacramento Bee that he believes President Joe Biden won the 2020 election "fairly and squarely," in recent days he has said he thinks there were "shenanigans" involved in the contest after facing a backlash from conservatives on social media.

As he comes under greater scrutiny, Elder seems to have more tightly controlled his access in recent days. He agreed to an interview with POLITICO, then rescheduled and then canceled this week. During his first press conference Friday, he only took questions from Chinese-language media.

Elder has focused his attacks on Newsom and largely ignored other Republicans, saying he would debate the governor one-on-one but declining to join GOP debates. He launched a new round of ads this week in which he speaks directly to the camera, telling voters that Newsom is an "elite dictator" who "abused power" during the pandemic.

His campaign is the first one to really catch fire this year among Republicans, and other candidates are now struggling to find traction or money in the homestretch. Major GOP donor Geoff Palmer gave Elder a $1 million check this week, adding to his financial advantage over other Republicans, though Newsom still has raised multitudes more.

California Republicans are so hungry for someone who's a great communicator," said Jennifer Kerns, a former California Republican Party spokesperson and a national radio host based in Southern California, who also praised Elder's ability to connect. "That's why I think they've fallen in love with Larry Elder."

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He opposes gun control, the minimum wage and could be California's next governor - POLITICO