Cal. Voters Oust 2 of 3 “Progressive” DAs

See note at the end regarding publication status of this post.**

California has four “progressive”* prosecutors who refused to join the tough-on-crime California District Attorneys’ Association and instead formed a group called the Prosecutors’ Alliance. Three of them were on the ballot June 7. Two were defeated. We may see about the fourth in November.

In a race watched throughout the country, San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin was recalled. The SF Chronicle results page has the vote at a nice round 55 to 45, a 10% margin. That is not as great as the election night returns, but still a decisive margin. See also Bill Otis’s post on this election.

Sixty miles inland, in the Central Valley, we are confident in saying that San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar was defeated by Ron Freitas, a deputy in the office. As of this writing, the result is 54-46.

In between, Contra Costa County voters took a contrary path and kept their “progressive” DA Diana Becton. As of this writing, she had 56% of the vote versus 44% for challenger Mary Knox. That’s a good showing in a difficult effort to oust an incumbent, but not enough.

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, the Gascón recall effort appears likely to qualify for the ballot. Perhaps in a few months Ms. Becton will be in an “alliance” of one.

In California, district attorneys are elected by county, and counties vary in the timing of their elections. Most counties elect their county officers in the same election cycle as the statewide executive offices–even numbered years that are not presidential election years. However, Los Angeles and San Francisco march to different drummers, so there are no regular DA elections in those counties this year. Hence the recall efforts.

Local elections are nonpartisan. No party designation appears on the ballot, though parties can make endorsements. Gascón was elected in part via misleading advertisements that fooled low-information voters into thinking he was the Democratic Party nominee for the nonpartisan office.

If a candidate in a local election wins over 50% in June, that is the end. Otherwise there is a runoff along with the general election in November.

Among the larger counties, Sacramento and Alameda (Oakland and vicinity) have no incumbents running. In Sacramento, veteran prosecutor Thien Ho, endorsed by outgoing DA Anne Marie Schubert, has decisively defeated Alana Mathews. In Alameda, there will be a runoff between veteran prosecutor Terry Wiley and civil rights attorney Pamela Price.

Statewide offices are partisan, and California has a “jungle” primary where party designations appear on the ballot but the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party.

In the Attorney General race it looks like Nathan Hochman will be the opponent to incumbent Rob Bonta, though his lead over Eric Early is less than 2% as of this writing. Early is Bonta’s preferred opponent, so much so that a pro-Bonta PAC has been running ads for Early on conservative talk radio stations. If Hochman is the candidate, as appears likely, he will have a steep uphill battle winning a statewide election with the Republican designation on the ballot. Can independent and moderate Democrat voters be sufficiently educated as to how criminogenic Bonta’s policies are to overcome their reluctance to vote for a Republican? Stay tuned.

* I put “progressive” in quotes because policies that will inevitably lead to increased crime are not my idea of progress.

** This post was originally written the day after the election, before I knew that a printing error in San Joaquin County required most of the ballots to be processed by hand. As a result, I unpublished this post until I could be confident of the result. I am republishing it on June 21.

As of June 21, 37,826 votes have been counted for the district attorney election, and 16,602 ballots remain to be counted. Even so, I am confident in saying that Ron Freitas has won the election. Three batches of ballots have been reported: election night, June 16, and June 21. The batches have not differed significantly from each other. Freitas was leading by 7 to 9% in all three batches. Chances of the last batch differing so sharply from the others as to wipe out a 3,500 vote lead as nearly nil.