SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- One of the leading candidates to replace Governor Gavin Newsom in the recall election spoke to fellow Republicans in Mission Valley Monday night.
Conservative radio host Larry Elder addressed a number of topics—from public education to water—during the meeting of the local Republican party. “I can stop a lot of bad stuff from happening at the very least. I can also declare a statewide emergency on homelessness, on water, on power. The state of our public schools… we’re near the bottom,” he said.
He advocated for school choice, saying the "money should follow the child, not the other way around."
Newsom was on the opposite end of the state in Northern California Monday, picking up trash underneath a freeway overpass. He spoke about Elder without mentioning his name.
“The leading candidate in this effort calls climate change a crock, calls climate change a myth, wants the minimum wage to be zero dollars, [and] is going to take us off a COVID cliff by eliminate masking in our public schools,” Newsom said.
Elder does not believe vaccines should be mandated, writing on his website “encouraging those who are unvaccinated to get the vaccine is the reasonable approach.”
He did not go into specifics about his plan to fix the problems he pointed out during his speech.
There were also flyers and posters at the event for another gubernatorial candidate, former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer. Faulconer was not at Monday night’s meeting, but a spokesperson told ABC 10News that he is “focused on holding Gavin Newsom accountable for his failures while sharing my vision and solutions for lower taxes, safe streets, and open schools.”
“With the experience that comes from leading our state’s second largest city and the solutions that will restore California’s promise, I am confident we will win on September 14th,” the former mayor’s statement said.
The California Republican Party has chosen not to endorse a candidate. California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Patterson said that it “speaks to the strength of our field of candidates and the outstanding position our party is in going into the recall election.”
