Lessons from California
Last week’s primary voting in California offered new evidence Democrats are at risk if they look soft on crime in this year’s midterm elections, even in the nation’s most liberal areas, John McCormick and I wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
The results in California — including the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — follow similar outcomes in 2021, when voters in heavily Democratic areas like Minneapolis and New York voted down candidates and measures viewed as being in opposition to police and security.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, won his Democratic primary last year against several candidates who supported defunding the police. He campaigned on reducing crime, but a poll released last week had bad news for the mayor and other incumbents.
Ahead of New York’s June 28 gubernatorial primary, 70% of New York City residents polled by the Siena College Research Institute said they felt less safe than they did before the pandemic. Fifty-two percent of voters said they thought the New York Police Department budget should be increased, and another 27% said they believed it should stay about the same.
“People are scared,” U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat challenging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in the primary, said Wednesday. “They’re worried. They want us to do something.”
New York lawmakers in April amended state bail law to allow judges to set cash bail for a greater number of offenses and make it easier to hold repeat offenders pending trial. Suozzi said judges should be given more discretion, while Hochul said during a Tuesday night debate that jurists had the tools they needed.
The Rev. Oswald Denis, a Bronx minister who is part of the New York Hispanic Clergy Association, said Boudin’s recall in San Francisco should force an awakening for Democrats. “People are saying they’re going to vote Republican because the Democrats are failing us,” said Denis, a conservative Democrat.
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, another Democrat challenging Hochul from the left, said the party should not adopt a “Republican-light” message on crime. “Right now, we have a vision that keeps people safe, if we would just lean into it,” Williams said. He has called for more investment in social services.
My colleagues Zusha Elinson and Jacob Gershman wrote about how the Boudin recall is a significant setbackin what has been called the progressive prosecutor movement. That movement includes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who took office earlier this year. New York Republicans say they will remove Bragg from office if they win the governor’s mansion.
And for a longer take on recent developments in San Francisco, check out Nellie Bowles essay in The Atlantic.“There is a sense that, on everything from housing to schools, San Francisco has lost the plot—that progressive leaders here have been LARPing left-wing values instead of working to create a livable city,” writes Bowles, who grew up in the city. “And many San Franciscans have had enough.”
THE QUESTION: Who was the last district attorney to be removed from office by a New York governor?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler has more seniority than U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney because Nadler won a special election to succeed Ted Weiss, who died in office.