Many district attorney elections across the country are taking place this year against the backdrop of rising crime, pushing candidates in even some liberal enclaves to embrace more aggressive law enforcement stances.
While typically uneventful affairs, district attorney races have attracted increasing attention in recent years thanks in large part to the efforts of liberal groups to promote progressive prosecutors. Liberal donor George Soros has made headlines for pouring millions of dollars into high-profile district attorney races won by candidates who support decriminalizing lower-level offenses and lighter sentences for a range of crimes.
Now, some races are becoming more competitive and partisan affairs.
“It would be a mistake to think that the national story about crime rates doesn’t affect local prosecutor elections,” Carissa Byrne Hessick, director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project at the University of North Carolina School of Law, told the Washington Examiner. “But local conditions may overwhelm that effect, depending on the jurisdiction and the candidates who are running.”
Concerns about crime have already upended several district attorney races this year, pushing some Democratic candidates away from the leftist orthodoxy on law enforcement.
In Baltimore, incumbent State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby suffered a stunning defeat in July when challenger Ivan Bates beat her in the Democratic primary.
One of the first recipients of Soros’s largesse, Mosby had presided over a sharp increase in crime in Baltimore as she moved to decriminalize drug and prostitution offenses. Although she faced criminal charges this year over problems with a personal loan application, Bates said voters “hardly ever” mentioned her controversies.
Instead, Bates framed his victory as a repudiation of her soft-on-crime approach.
“People are afraid to come out of their house. People are afraid of the crime,“ Bates said after winning in July. “Their whole displeasure [with Mosby] was that crime was out of control and that someone needs to do something.”
A challenger unseated incumbent District Attorney Andrea Harrington, a progressive, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, last month after accusing her of approaching gun crimes too leniently.
Tim Shugrue, also a Democrat, had argued the district attorney’s office needed to work more closely with police and bring more aggressive charges against people who commit gun crimes.
While Shugrue, who is running unopposed in the general election after winning the Democratic primary, had the backing of state and local police unions, Harrington had secured the endorsement of liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) before her loss last month.
Harrington had focused heavily on racial equity when in office.
In Tennessee, incumbent District Attorney Lisa Zavogiannis lost in August to a challenger who similarly promised to ease tensions between the prosecutor’s office and police departments.
Chris Stanford campaigned for the top prosecutor job in Warren and Van Buren counties on pledges to pursue harsher charges against criminals.
“In getting out and talking with people, and I firmly believe this myself, people want more accountability for drug dealers,” Stanford said after winning the race, according to local news. “I believe they need to be in prison instead of getting a six-month sentence in the county jail. The longer they are locked up, especially if they are violent criminals with guns, the longer our community is safe, and I’m going to work to put them away for as long as a judge will agree with me.”
In Oklahoma in June, incumbent District Attorney Kenny Wright lost after more than seven years in office to challenger Doug Pewitt, who stressed on social media that he was running to “put a real prosecutor” in the post.
Elsewhere in Oklahoma, incumbent District Attorney Allan Grubb lost in June to a challenger, David Hammer, after facing scrutiny over deals his office struck with some offenders.
“People that really need the chance so they don’t cloud their future,” Grubb said earlier this year about the prosecution deferment agreements he approved. “That’s what I ran on, that we would not prosecute low-level crimes and ruin people’s ability to get jobs.”
Grubb’s office also had financial problems.
Hammer had promised to repair relationships with police and restore trust in the office before he won but, in a shocking turn of events, died several days after his victory and several weeks before Grubb resigned due to the controversies.
Hessick said most district attorneys tend to run unopposed and that even when they face challengers, they often do so in primaries. Incumbents frequently have an advantage in district attorney elections, she said.
Progressive challengers vowing criminal justice reform have failed to unseat incumbent prosecutors in some races this year, a mark of that structural advantage but also a sign of voters’ diminishing appetite for leftist reforms.
Earlier this year, two district attorneys in Oregon counties fended off liberal challengers who promised to reform the system. In Washington County, incumbent District Attorney Kevin Barton said after his win in May that voters prioritized safety and noted that he “ran on a balanced approach and that balance does include being tough on crime.”
During the campaign, he called the leaders of the neighboring county, which includes Portland, “crazy” for allowing crime to flourish and accused its leaders of having “ruined the public safety system” of the county.
Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson successfully defended her post from a progressive challenger who had promised to pursue more alternatives to law enforcement.
Clarkson pitched herself as tougher on crime than her primary opponent.
Within the race for San Francisco district attorney this year, the three leading candidates, all Democrats, have battled over the level of appropriate aggression in law enforcement as the city grapples with high levels of concern among voters about crime.
Former District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled by voters earlier this year, and his appointed replacement, Brooke Jenkins, has featured a promise to crack down on certain kinds of crime in her campaign.
Her first campaign ad included a pledge to work closely with police to stop the lower-level offense of car break-ins. By contrast, Boudin’s campaign ad in 2019 featured a pledge to keep more people out of jail.
A handful of races involve more traditional Republican vs. Democrat divides, however.
In Oklahoma County, a Democrat and a Republican are locked in a bitter race for an open district attorney seat.
Republican Kevin Calvey said he will “put the focus back on public safety, not on political vendettas,” and vowed to crack down on crime. Democrat Vicki Behenna, former executive director of the Oklahoma Innocence Project, has touted her experience but has not been as strident on the need to go after criminals.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, the politics are even more national. Abortion has played a role in the race for top prosecutor.
Arizona bans abortions except in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, but the Democratic candidate for county attorney, Julie Gunnigle, has promised she would not prosecute abortion-related crimes.
Her opponent, incumbent Republican Rachel Mitchell, has said she is “sworn to uphold the law” and clarified that the state’s abortion law is meant to target doctors who violate it, not women.
Mitchell was appointed to her post earlier this year and is seeking a full term in a special election.
The elected county attorney, Allister Adel, resigned over misconduct accusations earlier this year and died six weeks later.
Read more here.