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California voters send mixed messages in high-stakes races amid low turnout
California voters send mixed messages in high-stakes races amid low turnoutThemes of inequality, crime, and rising cost of living dominated races, but experts say, turnout a stark sign of political apathy Voters in California returned mixed messages in the state’s midterm primary elections on Tuesday, casting ballots in a series of high-stakes races that were dominated by themes of inequality, crime, and the rising cost of living.Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor, cruised to an easy victory in this deep blue state, advancing to the November general election, where he will be an overwhelming favorite to win a second term.In Los Angeles, the Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass and the billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso qualified for the final vote in November to fill the mayor’s seat.And in San Francisco, residents voted to recall the high-profile progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was elected in November 2019 on an agenda of criminal justice reform but faced intensifying backlash from law enforcement, conservatives and residents concerned about crime.In a year when they are on the defensive nationwide, Democrats were expected to perform well in the Golden state on Tuesday, outnumbering Republicans 2-to-1 and holding huge majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation.In races up and down the state, crime, policing, the growing humanitarian crisis of homelessness and record gas prices had emerged as central issues. Still, Tuesday’s primary was marked by low turnout, in what experts say is a stark sign of political apathy considering all registered voters in California were mailed a ballot.The turnout left analysts to debate whether the results should be seen as a bellwether of Democratic voters’ broader views on crime and policing. Some more centrist political consultants argued the results were a warning to Democrats to avoid progressive stances on reforming the criminal justice system. Others said the results reflected the media’s coverage of crime and a successful rightwing playbook, more than the reality on the streets.Less than a year after a recall campaign tried to force him from office, Newsom obliterated a field of 25 other candidates with about 59% of the votes. The Democrat will face Republican Brian Dahle, a state senator from the sparsely populated north-east corner of the state, in November.Newsom has been campaigning on a progressive agenda, pitching California as a bulwark against conservative legislation spearheaded by Republicans nationwide.He has vowed to make California a sanctuary for women from other states seeking abortions and has pushed for a new law that would let people sue gun makers and sellers to enforce a ban on some assault weapons.Jessica Levinson, a political commentator and election law professor at Loyola Marymount University, was blunt in her assessment of Dahle’s chances: “The proverbial snowball has a better chance in hell,” she said.Boudin, a former public defender and the son of two leftwing Weather Underground radicals who spent decades in prison for a fatal heist, was one of the most prominent prosecutors in the US fighting to undo the damage of harsh punishments in a country that locks up more people per capita than any other.But he had faced growing headwinds from critics, blaming him for crime, violence, homelessness, retail thefts and other challenges that escalated in the city during the pandemic.Echoing national trends, San Francisco had seen an increase in homicides in past years, though analysts noted overall violent crime decreased during the pandemic, and many categories of crime were down under Boudin’s tenure. But the recall campaign tapped into growing frustration among some voters, and had a huge financial advantage, backed by ultra-wealthy donors.In a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night, Boudin struck a defiant tone, noting that progressive candidates were winning or leading in their races in other parts of California and the US: “The movement that got us elected in 2019 is alive and well. We see the results from coast to coast, from north to south.”In Los Angeles, voters’ decision to send Bass and Caruso to a runoff sets up a race that will present residents in the second largest US city with starkly different options for the future.Bass came to prominence as a progressive community activist in South Central Los Angeles and rose to become the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She said that she had decided to run for mayor in part because of her concerns that voters’ frustrations over homelessness and high-profile property crimes might lead to the same kind of punitive, damaging policies that California politicians and voters endorsed during the 1990s.Caruso, a luxury mall developer with an an estimated net worth of $4bn, ran with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles. His campaign focused on crime and disorder, pledging to strengthen and expand the city’s police department and vowing to aggressively crack down on homeless encampments.Street activist, congresswoman – mayor? Karen Bass reaches for LA’s top jobRead moreCaruso poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign through early June. He was backed by celebrity endorsements from Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk.At his election night party at the Grove, one of his shopping malls, Caruso said the voters supporting him were sending a clear message: “We are not helpless in the face of our problems. We will not allow the city to decline,” the Los Angeles Times reported.Bass told supporters on Tuesday night: “We are in a fight for the soul of our city, and we are going to win,” the Times reported.In another high-profile race, California’s state attorney general, Rob Bonta, a progressive who has backed reform efforts, advanced to the general election, with early results showing he held a substantial lead over three challengers with more conservative platforms.Levinson, the Loyola Law School professor, predicted that Bonta would win in November despite his challengers’ attempts to tap into Californians’ growing unease on crime.“Because this is not just about prosecuting crime, which mostly happens on the county level,” she said. “This is about what is going to be our legal policy with respect to reproductive rights, what’s going to be our legal policy with respect to second amendment rights, what’s going to be our policy with respect to immigration?”The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsCaliforniaGavin NewsomUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime
LOS ANGELES — Voters in California delivered a stark warning to the Democratic Party on Tuesday about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022, as a Republican-turned-Democrat campaigning as a crime-fighter vaulted into a runoff in the mayoral primary in Los Angeles and a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled in a landslide.The two results made vivid the depths of voter frustration over rising crime and rampant homelessness in even the most progressive corners of the country — and are the latest signs of a restless Democratic electorate that was promised a return to normalcy under President Biden and yet remains unsatisfied with the nation’s state of affairs.“People are not in a good mood, and they have reason not to be in a good mood,” said Garry South, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist. “It’s not just the crime issue. It’s the homelessness. It’s the high price of gasoline.”The West Coast contests were being monitored closely by strategists and leaders in both parties around the country, as Democrats seek to hold together a fractious and diverse political coalition that can be divided both by race and ideology over criminal justice.In Los Angeles, Rick Caruso, a billionaire luxury mall developer, spent nearly $41 million telling voters how he would restore order in the city, vowing to add 1,500 officers to the police department and promoting the endorsement of William J. Bratton, the former police chief famous for his broken-windows policy. The race now heads to a November runoff. Mr. Caruso will face Representative Karen Bass, the Democratic former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Caruso had about 42 percent of the vote and Ms. Bass had around 37 percent early Wednesday morning.In San Francisco, about 60 percent of voters recalled Chesa Boudin, a former public defender who became district attorney in 2019 in a huge win for the progressive left. He promised then that “the tough-on-crime policies and rhetoric of the 1990s and early 2000s are on their way out.” Instead, he is.Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney, making final campaign appearances on Tuesday.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesThe elections on Tuesday showed the extent to which the political winds have shifted even in Democratic cities in the two years since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. The initial rally cry on the left then — “defund the police” — has since become so politically toxic that it is now more often used by Republicans as an epithet than by Democrats as an earnest policy proposal. And the crusading energy to overhaul policing in the face of rising crime has waned.For Democrats, the issue of crime and disorder threatens to drive a wedge between some of the party’s core constituencies, as some voters demand action on racial and systemic disparities while others are focused on their own sense of safety in their homes and neighborhoods.“People walking the streets, in many cases, feel themselves in danger, and that’s got to be dealt with,” said Willie Brown, a Democrat who is the former mayor of San Francisco.But Mr. Brown said too many Democrats do not want to talk about “what cops do” for fear of crossing the party’s activist class and offending “A.O.S. or A.O.C. or whatever that woman’s name is,” he said dismissively of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the influential progressive.In a sign of how crime can divide the party in unusual ways, public and internal polling showed how the crime-and-homelessness campaign of Mr. Caruso, who is white, helped him make inroads with a large swath of Black men, even as he ran against Ms. Bass, who is Black. In one May survey, Mr. Caruso was performing more than 30 percentage points better among Black men than women.Mr. Caruso found traction in the heavily Democratic city despite being a longtime Republican who then became an independent and only joined the Democratic Party just before running for office. He ran a campaign promising to “clean up” the city and hailed Tuesday’s results as “a great awakening.”Jefrey Pollock, a pollster for Mr. Caruso, said the results should be a take-heed moment for the party.“If the Democratic primary electorate is showing a shift toward the middle on police and crime issues, then it is an even larger concern when thinking about the November general elections,” said Mr. Pollock, who also works for at-risk Democratic congressional candidates in other states.Turnout was low on Tuesday across California. And there is always a risk of over-interpreting local races where distinctly local dynamics are often at play. Mr. Caruso’s vast financial advantage — he outspent Ms. Bass by more than 10-to-1 — is not replicable in most races, and he still faces a fierce fight in the fall.Steve Soboroff, a Los Angeles police commissioner who himself ran for mayor in 2001 and endorsed Ms. Bass this year, was unimpressed by Mr. Caruso’s “basic guttural knee-jerk messages” on crime and his final showing, given his vast spending.“Caruso hit a glass ceiling made of Waterford crystal,” he said.In her own election night speech, Ms. Bass referenced the tilted financial playing field. “All of us stood strong against an onslaught,” she said.Election workers wait for voters at the Avalon Carver Community Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Pollock noted that vulnerable congressional Democrats are already hearing about crime back home and racing to show how they differ with the “progressive trends on handling crime.” In Washington, House Democrats boosted funding and grants for local and state law enforcement by more than $500 million in this year’s appropriations package, delivering Democratic lawmakers a talking point to rebuff “defund” attacks from Republicans.And at the White House, Mr. Biden has made a point of outright rejecting the most severe rhetoric embraced by the activist left.“The answer is not to defund the police,” Mr. Biden said in February when he visited New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams, who won in 2021 primarily on a crime-fighting message, has been held up as an example of how to approach the issue.Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, met privately with Mr. Adams this spring in part to strategize on approaches to public safety. “He was empathetic to the plight and the issue that we’re all facing,” Frank Carone, Mr. Adams’s chief of staff, said of Mr. Klain.The extent to which crime is actually up depends on the category being measured and the particular jurisdiction. But strategists in both parties said that whatever the data shows, there is a widespread sense that daily life in big-city America is no longer as safe as it once was.“There are voters in the suburbs and exurbs all across this country — they’re seeing what’s happening in cities,” said Dan Conston, who heads the leading super PAC for House Republicans. “They’re both aghast and concerned for their communities.”Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More
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Who won and who lost in Tuesday’s primary elections.
Voters in seven states weighed in on key contests in Tuesday’s primaries. Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses:CaliforniaSan Francisco recalled its progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Mr. Boudin had enacted sweeping overhauls since being elected two years ago and faced criticism that those changes led to increases in crime.Rick Caruso, the billionaire developer, and Representative Karen Bass will square off in a runoff contest to be the mayor of Los Angeles.Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year easily beat back a Republican-led recall effort, will face State Senator Brian Dahle, a Republican.Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, will advance to the November runoff after his first place finish in the open primary for that office. A second candidate has not been determined yet.Representative Michelle Steel, a freshman Republican, will face Jay Chen, a Democrat and Navy reservist.Scott Baugh, a former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter.Representative Mike Garcia, a Republican, will face Christy Smith, a former Democratic state legislator, for the third time.Kevin Kiley, a Republican state legislator backed by former President Donald J. Trump, will compete against the Democrat, Kermit Jones, who is a Navy veteran and physician, in the Third Congressional District.New JerseyRobert J. Menendez Jr., the son of Senator Bob Menendez, won his House Democratic primary in the Eighth Congressional District.Tom Kean Jr., a former lawmaker and the son of a two-term New Jersey governor, won the Republican nomination in the state’s Seventh Congressional District. He now faces Representative Tom Malinowski, the Democratic incumbent.IowaSenator Charles E. Grassley, 88, easily won his primary race and will run against Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral who won the Democratic primary for Senate.State Senator Zach Nunn won the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District. Mr. Nunn will face Representative Cindy Axne, the Democratic incumbent.New MexicoMark Ronchetti, a former Albuquerque television meteorologist, was the Republican’s pick to challenge Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat.Gabe Vasquez, a Las Cruces city councilor, won the Democratic nomination for New Mexico’s Second Congressional District. Mr. Vasquez will face Representative Yvette Herrell, the Republican incumbent.Raúl Torrez, the Bernalillo County district attorney, defeated Brian Colón, the state auditor, in the Democratic primary for attorney general.South DakotaVoters defeated an effort to increase the level of support needed to pass most voter-initiated referendums to 60 percent from a majority.Gov. Kristi Noem won her Republican primary, and so did Senator John Thune.MississippiRepresentative Steven Palazzo, a Republican facing an ethics investigation, was forced into a runoff election in his party’s primary, according to The Associated Press. It has not yet been announced who he will face later this month. More
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LA sheriff Alex Villanueva appears headed for runoff election amid series of scandals
LA sheriff Alex Villanueva appears headed for runoff election amid series of scandalsLaw enforcement officer, derided by critics as the ‘Donald Trump of LA’, did not win enough votes for re-election, early results show Alex Villanueva, the Los Angeles county sheriff embroiled in multiple scandals, appears headed for a runoff election in November as early results suggest he failed to win enough votes to secure re-election.Villanueva, who has been derided by critics as the “Donald Trump of LA”, is likely to face off with Robert Luna, the former police chief of Long Beach. Luna was endorsed by the LA Times and LA Daily News editorial boards, which argued that the embattled agency needed an outsider to take over, though Luna’s police department also faced controversies.As of late Tuesday night, Villanueva held a slight lead, with 32% of the vote to Luna’s 26% and 35% of votes counted.Despite national scrutiny of Villanueva surrounding a series of misconduct, abuse and obstruction cases, his critics did not unite behind one candidate.Villanueva has become a favorite law enforcement figure among some far-right pundits, and is known for aggressively opposing efforts to bring accountability to the department. In recent years, he has publicly lashed out at critics and the media and launched criminal investigations into the officials who have sought to reform his agency, earning him comparisons to the former president.San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformRead moreThe sheriff was a little-known lieutenant when he was elected in 2018 and became the first candidate to beat an incumbent for LA sheriff in more than 100 years. He was backed by Democrats and progressive groups during his campaign after pledging to reform an agency with a long history of scandal. But over the last four years, he has lost the support of Democratic groups, civil rights activists and a wide range of LA county leaders, who say he broke his promises and allows officers to engage in violence and misconduct without consequence.The Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) is the largest county sheriff’s office in the US, with thousands of officers who patrol nearly 200 southern California towns and cities. The sheriff also oversees one of the world’s largest jail systems. A former head of the department was sent to prison in 2020 after he was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into systemic abuse of incarcerated people in the county jail system.LASD has faced growing outrage over reports of “deputy gangs” within the department – cliques of officers with names like the Banditos and Executioners, who allegedly have matching tattoos and promote brutality and racist policing. Despite increasing testimony from whistleblowers and LA county officials about the presence and threats posed by these internal groups, Villanueva has repeatedly denied their existence.The county inspector general, the top watchdog for LASD, has identified more than 40 such groups within the department, but Villanueva has defined subpoenas by the IG and demanded the county’s board of supervisors cease using the phrase “deputy gangs”. Villanueva has aggressively attacked the IG, accusing him, without any evidence, of being a “Holocaust denier”, a claim the IG said was “deeply offensive” and false. Villanueva also has a “civil rights and public integrity” unit, reportedly known internally as his “secret police”, that has launched investigations into his political opponents.In a separate controversy, a whistleblower recently claimed that Villanueva personally directed a cover-up of an incident, captured on film, in which jail guards knelt on the head of a handcuffed man for three minutes. Several high-profile killings by his deputies have also sparked national headlines in recent years, and families of victims have accused his department of harassing them.Villanueva campaigned on a platform of hiring more police, cracking down on homelessness and opposing “woke” reform efforts. In a recent interview with the Guardian, he dismissed the whistleblower and other claims against him and his department, saying they were “driven by trial attorneys and opportunistic politicians” and a “cabal of people” creating a “false narrative”.Luna campaigned on a platform of restoring trust in the department and “reforming and modernizing” the LA jails, though as Long Beach chief, a position he held from 2014 through 2021, he also battled scandals; there have been claims of racism in the department and concerns about excessive force and killings by officers. Luna grew up in East LA, in an area heavily patrolled by the sheriff’s department, and he has talked about witnessing bad policing tactics in the neighborhood.Long Beach is the second-largest city in LA county, and if he wins, Luna would be the second police chief from the city to take over the sheriff’s office.TopicsLos AngelesUS policingUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022CalifornianewsReuse this content More
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Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to runoff in Los Angeles mayoral race
Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to runoff in Los Angeles mayoral raceCandidates head to November rematch after neither one secures enough votes to win outright in primary The congresswoman Karen Bass and the billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso will head to a November rematch in their bids to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, after neither candidate secured enough votes to win outright in Tuesday’s primary.An early tally of mail-in ballots showed Caruso with 41% and Bass with 38% of the vote, meaning both candidates failed to clear the 50% threshold needed to win outright. The Associated Press called the race as a runoff late on Tuesday evening.As the top two vote-getters, they will advance to the general election in a contest whose outcome is likely to have major consequences for Los Angeles’s approach to policing, crime and the growing humanitarian crisis of homelessness across southern California.San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformRead moreWhile the non-partisan mayoral primary began with a field of a dozen candidates, it quickly became a contest between the two frontrunners: Bass, a former progressive community activist in South Central Los Angeles who had risen to become the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Caruso, a luxury mall developer and former Republican who Forbes ranks No 261 on the list of the richest people in the US. The mayoral candidates and their outside backers and critics poured more than $50m into campaign spending during the primary race, a stunning figure in a campaign whose central issue has been what to do about the more than 41,000 unhoused people living in Los Angeles.Homelessness is a crisis along the entire west coast, but many voters and politicians in Los Angeles say it has reached a state of emergency. As of 2020, an estimated 40% of all unhoused people in California, and 20% of all unhoused people living outside in the US, lived in Los Angeles county. As rent and housing prices have continued to rise, the presence of people living in cars, RVs, and in tents on the street and in public parks has prompted fierce debates about the failures of city officials to resolve a growing humanitarian crisis.Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $4bn, poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign through early June, with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles. He was backed by celebrity endorsements from his neighbor, the actor Gwyneth Paltrow; Bill Bratton, the police chief who championed “broken windows” policing; the rapper Snoop Dog; and the entrepreneurs Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk.His omnipresent political advertising across Los Angeles won him enough votes to advance to the general election as the more conservative, pro-police alternative to Bass, a California Democrat who was considered as a potential vice-presidential pick for Joe Biden.At his election night party at the Grove, one of his shopping malls, Caruso said the voters supporting him were sending a clear message: “We are not helpless in the face of our problems. We will not allow the city to decline,” the Los Angeles Times reported.At Bass’s election party, with her grandson and other family members by her side, the congresswoman told supporters, “We are in a fight for the soul of our city, and we are going to win,” the Times reported.Caruso ran a campaign focused on crime and disorder, pledging to strengthen and expand the city’s police department by hiring 1,500 additional officers. He drew scrutiny on a number of fronts, including his suggestion to arrest unhoused people who refuse to move to a city-provided shelter bed, his record of political donations to Republican candidates who have opposed abortion rights, and the fact that he only registered as a Democrat shortly before entering the mayoral race (he was previously a political independent, and before that, a Republican).Bass, who first rose to prominence as an advocate for public health approaches to addiction and crime during the crack epidemic in the 80s and 90s, has said that she decided to run for mayor in part because of her concerns that voters’ frustrations over homelessness and high-profile property crimes might lead to the same kind of punitive, damaging policies that California politicians and voters endorsed during the 1990s.Street activist, congresswoman – mayor? Karen Bass reaches for LA’s top jobRead moreBass has highlighted the dangers of criminalizing poverty, even as she has pledged to put an end to unhoused people living in public spaces across the city. She has said she supports small increases to the city’s police force and a focus on devoting more police resources to solving the city’s homicides.As Caruso faces off with Bass in the general election, it’s unlikely that Bass will fully match his spending, but progressive Hollywood donors are expected to pour a substantial amount of money into her campaign, as well.“If Rick Caruso was willing to spend $30m in the primary, why wouldn’t he spend the same amount for the general?” the political scientist Fernando Guerra said.Bass “will not meet or beat what Rick Caruso spends”, but her campaign and her liberal Democratic allies will spend enough “that she will be competitive in terms of getting her message out”, Guerra added.To break national records for a self-financed mayoral campaign, Caruso would have to outspend the New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who spent $109m on his campaign to win a third term as New York City’s mayor in 2009. Bloomberg spent $74m in 2001 and $85m in 2005 on his earlier mayoral bids; he burned through a reported $1bn on a short-lived run for president in 2020.The mayor’s race took place alongside other closely watched political contests in California on Tuesday. In San Francisco, the city’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled by voters in a blow to criminal justice reform.TopicsLos AngelesUS politicsCaliforniaDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
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Katie Porter Will Face Scott Baugh in the Fall.
Scott Baugh, the former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter, a Democratic star, in November.The newly drawn 47th District of California leans slightly Democratic, but in a difficult year for President Biden’s party, Republicans would relish dimming Ms. Porter’s shine. Since she took her seat in the former Republican stronghold of Orange County in 2018, Ms. Porter has emerged as a powerhouse fund-raiser and a popular figure for the activist left.Democratic officials widely see her as an heir to the Senate seat now held by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is not expected to seek re-election in November 2024, when she will be 91. A loss now would complicated Ms. Porter’s path.Representative Katie Porter, a powerhouse Democratic fund-raiser, at a campaign event on Saturday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesMr. Baugh is the essence of the Orange County Republican establishment, having once headed the party in the county. With more than $1 million in his campaign accounts, he heads toward November in a respectable position. But his cash on hand pales in comparison with Ms. Porter’s $18 million in a widely watched race is likely to be expensive. More
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San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reform
San Francisco recalls DA Chesa Boudin in blow to criminal justice reformGavin Newsom easily advances to November election as Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to mayoral runoff in Los Angeles San Francisco residents have voted to recall the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was elected on an agenda of criminal justice reform but faced intensifying backlash from law enforcement, conservatives and residents concerned about crime.Boudin’s removal as the city’s top prosecutor in the middle of his first term is a major blow to a growing movement across the US to elect progressive DAs dedicated to tackling mass incarceration, police brutality and racism in the legal system.The race was called by the Associated Press just over an hour after polls closed, with partial returns showing the recall received about 60% of the vote.In a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night, Boudin struck a defiant yet optimistic tone, saying he had been outspent by opponents but noting progressive candidates were winning or leading in their races in other parts of California and the US: “The movement that got us elected in 2019 is alive and well. We see the results from coast to coast, from north to south.”He noted that even as his office reduced incarceration rates and prioritized mental health and drug treatment, “crime rates stayed flat or declined”, adding: “We’ve already won, because we are part of a national movement that recognizes we can never incarcerate our way out of poverty. We have shown San Francisco and the world that we do not need to rely on fearmongering or exploitation of tragedy to build safety.”Boudin is a former public defender and the son of two leftist Weather Underground activists who spent decades in prison. He became one of the most prominent prosecutors in the US fighting to undo the damage of harsh punishments in a country that locks up more people per capita than any other.After his election in 2019, Boudin created a wrongful conviction unit that freed a man imprisoned for decades; eliminated cash bail in an effort to ensure people weren’t jailed because they were too poor to pay a fee; stopped prosecuting contraband cases that originated with minor traffic stops; and became the first San Francisco DA to charge an officer for an alleged on-duty manslaughter.Through resentencing, diversion and other reforms, Boudin has overseen a 35% reduction in the population of San Francisco residents in state prisons, a 37% decline in the adult jail population, and a 57% decline in the juvenile jail population.Boudin’s ousting came on a day of high-stakes primary races up and down the state, with the rising cost of living, policing and the state’s growing homelessness crisis high on voters’ minds.Karen Bass and Rick Caruso head to runoff in Los Angeles mayoral raceRead moreIn Los Angeles, a mayor’s race that pitted a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, against the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass will head for a November runoff after neither candidate cleared the necessary 50% vote threshold to win outright. That election was marked by record spending and a focus on crime and homelessness. Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $4bn, poured more than $38m of his own fortune into his campaign, with a pledge to “clean up” Los Angeles.Meanwhile, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, cruised to an easy victory, advancing to the November general election, where he will be an overwhelming favorite to win a second term barely a year after surviving his own recall attempt.The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a progressive who has backed reform efforts, advanced to the general election on Tuesday night, with early results showing Bonta held a substantial lead over three challengers with more conservative platforms.Tuesday’s primary has been marked by low turnout, in what experts say is a stark sign of political apathy considering all registered voters in California were mailed a ballot.“Even if you make it extremely easy to vote, like in California, but the political culture, candidates and issues aren’t there, you aren’t going to increase the turnout,” the political scientist Fernando Guerra said.The San Francisco recall campaign had a huge financial advantage, backed by ultra-wealthy donors, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, including Ron Conway, an early DoorDash investor, and William Oberndorf, a billionaire and Republican mega-donor. Critics blamed Boudin for crime, violence, homelessness, retail thefts and other challenges that escalated during the pandemic. Homicides have increased in the city, echoing national trends, but overall violent crime decreased during the pandemic.Experts say prosecutors’ policies often have little bearing on crime rates, which are a function of complex socioeconomic factors, with some research suggesting that harsher punishments do not deter crime. As the recall gained ground, Boudin’s office noted that some California regions with “tough on crime” DAs promoting a traditional punitive approach were experiencing higher crime rates than San Francisco.Bid to recall San Francisco DA could be bellwether for progressive prosecutorsRead moreIn an interview before the election, Boudin said the recall was “dangerous for democracy”, noting that voters were opting to remove him without knowing who would replace him. The recall, he said, was relying on a “Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country”.San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, a moderate Democrat, will appoint a successor to take over the DA’s office, but did not immediately announce her pick on Tuesday. Breed has increasingly opposed Boudin’s policies and criminal justice reforms more broadly, repeatedly siding with police officials in disputes and pushing to expand the police force and its powers. Boudin will be removed 10 days after the results are formally adopted, and his replacement will remain in place until the November election.Progressive DAs in Philadelphia and Chicago have won re-election despite intense backlash but have also faced renewed calls to have them removed from office. There are also efforts to recall the Los Angeles DA, who was elected on a reform platform, but an initial campaign last year failed to get enough signatures.Miriam Krinsky, the executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, a network of local prosecutors who support reform, said in a statement on Tuesday night that Boudin’s ouster was the result of “a low turnout recall process easily swayed by special interests and coming at a time of deep frustration and trauma”. She said there was no evidence that reform-minded prosecutors had caused an uptick in crime in the US and praised Boudin for creating diversion programs to reduce recidivism.Recall efforts, often backed by conservatives, have become increasingly common in California, where voters can petition to remove a politician for any reason. In February, San Francisco held its first recall vote in the city since 1983, with residents electing to remove three school board members amid frustrations about closed schools during the pandemic.The Associated Press and Lois Beckett contributed reportingTopicsSan FranciscoUS politicsCalifornianewsReuse this content More
