GOP Strategist on Larry Elder’s Recall Strategy: ‘Greatest Self-Own In 20 Years Of California Politics That I’ve Ever Seen’

Chris Hayes conducted a postmortem of California’s recall election with Republican strategist Ron Nehring on Thursday night, and the operative did not have many nice things to say about conservative talk show host Larry Elder’s strategy.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) easily prevailed in the election on Tuesday, beating back a Republican-led effort to remove him from office. Had a majority of voters voted “yes,” he would have been removed. His replacement would have been the candidate who received the most votes among the slate of candidates listed on the ballot.

Elder would have been the clear winner. With 75% of the results in as of Thursday night, he had more than a 25 percentage point lead over his nearest opponent.

In the run-up to the election, Elder made various claims about “shenanigans” afoot, and suggested Democrats would rig the election for Newsom. The day before the election, he refused to say whether he’d accept the results if he lost. (However, after the race was called, he did concede.)

“If you tell people it’s gonna be rigged, said Hayes, it’s “not the greatest motivator for them to go out and vote.”

“No,” said Nehring. “No, absolutely not. This is the greatest self-own in 20 years of California politics that I’ve ever seen, in that Larry Elder’s website said that the election had been stolen, and that Gavin Newsom had won. And it said that on Monday, the day before the election. And that’s just an extraordinary statement to make. It is the opposite of ‘get out the vote.’ It is suppressing your own voters from turning out and voting because you’re telling them the election has already been lost. It’s monumental political malpractice to do that.”

Nehring added that he didn’t think Elder was running for governor, but rather “running to be an influencer.”

Watch above via MSNBC.