Maybe partisanship was bound to kick in no matter what, but I feel like Elder becoming the face of the recall couldn't have helped the pro-recall camp.
At this point, I'd be very surprised if it succeeds.
It’s a combination of both, I’d say — I don’t think this was ever going to succeed when framed as a R vs. D race, and one should not forget that most of the polls that showed the race close also indicated unusually large support for Recall among Democrats and a surprisingly large number of 'undecided' Democrats (this should have been a flashing warning sign since those groups were always going to come home in the end). However, Elder essentially being a loose cannon who’s striking the wrong notes and is hilariously easy to run against by even an incompetent D campaign obviously helps at the margins. Team Newsom is also vastly outspending the entire field, and the mail-in system ensures high turnout on all sides.
This is safer than NJ at this point (and it arguably always was — kudos to those who didn’t fall for the hype).
