San Francisco recalls progressive DA

The successful recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Tuesday has already led some pundits to declare the demise of the “progressive prosecutor.”

But a look around the country — and closer probe of San Francisco’s particular issues — tells a more complicated story.

What’s clear is that Boudin was soundly rejected by his constituents. What’s less certain, or simple to explain, is why. Boudin had powerful, moneyed opponents aligned against him, for sure, but progressive candidates have overcome those hurdles in a series of races this primary season. More problematic for Boudin, though, was his poor standing with voters in San Francisco, who recently recalled three school board members, and a general discontent, not unlike what we’ve seen in other typically liberal cities, with overlapping issues of crime, homelessness and the cost of living.

Boudin didn’t do himself too many favors in trying to assuage some very real concerns with his performance in office, but an early scan of the incoming results shows a divide between younger voters and older, wealthier ones.

Looking outside the city, and around the country, the prospects for fellow progressive-prosecutor types still look promising.

As recently as last fall, Alvin Bragg won the district attorney race in Manhattan — in the same cycle that saw New Yorkers elect Eric Adams as mayor. In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner easily won reelection despite an ultimately overblown backlash to his policies. And in the Chicago area, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx won a second term in 2020.

Boudin’s ouster is certainly a blow to the movement he, at least for the moment, has come to represent. But the implications for the future are more difficult to nail down — especially if the headline issues that fueled the discontent around him don’t end along with his time in office.

Six-term US Rep. Karen Bass was once viewed as the front-runner in the Los Angeles mayoral contest, but she has faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from billionaire shopping mall magnate Rick Caruso, a former Republican.

CNN is yet to make a projection in the contest, but Bass and Caruso are leading the 12-candidate field.

The two mayoral hopefuls headed into Tuesday’s primary as the likely top-two vote getters, who would advance to the November ballot if no candidate won a majority of the vote outright.

If elected, Bass would be the first woman and the first Black woman to lead America’s second-largest city. Once a teen activist, Bass served in the California State Assembly prior to her time in Congress. In 2008, she made history as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature, according to her congressional biography.

The congresswoman currently represents California’s 37th District. She has championed efforts to shape public policy in areas such as child welfare, foster care and prison reform. She chaired the Congressional Black Caucus for two years and helped to lead policing overhaul efforts after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020.

Spending more than $40 million in the race, Caruso has argued that city leaders have failed to keep voters safe and protect their quality of life. Tents have proliferated across Los Angeles, taking over parks, sidewalks and public spaces as the city has struggled to house some 41,000 people who need shelter.

While Bass says she would return the Los Angeles Police Department to its authorized force of 9,700 officers — in part by hiring more civilians to free up 250 officers to return to street patrol — Caruso has promised to hire 1,500 additional officers and to bring on some 500 sanitation workers to clean up the streets.

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who has earned national attention for her forceful interrogations of corporate and oil executives in congressional hearings, will face Republican Scott Baugh in the general election for California’s new 47th District, CNN projects.

While the district leans Democratic, this year’s unpredictable political climate has made Porter a GOP target.

Baugh, the former GOP leader of the California State Assembly and a former chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, has highlighted the toll of rising crime and higher gas and grocery prices in his campaign. He has the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and was named to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program for promising recruits.

California Rep. Young Kim was heralded as a face of the new GOP when she made history in 2020 as one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress.

Kim narrowly unseated Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros in a Southern California district in 2020, two years after losing to him in her first attempt. It initially looked like Kim would have an easier race this year when she decided to run in the redrawn 40th District, which is far more favorable to the GOP. But Kim is new to many voters in the new district – which encompasses parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties – and she had to contend with a challenge from the right Tuesday in the “top-two” primary. 

Kim, who was born in South Korea but grew up in Guam, settled in Los Angeles after earning an MBA. She previously told CNN she gravitated toward the Republican Party while studying accounting at the University of Southern California in 1984 during the Reagan administration, when his tax cuts were moving through Congress.

In 1990, Kim got a job with then-California state Sen. Ed Royce and stayed with him when he was elected to Congress. It also served as a training ground – she now holds Royce’s congressional seat.

“Being able to work with him for about 21 years in Congress, I always thought, ‘OK, at least I know a little bit about how Congress works. Maybe I can get myself here,'” she said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the first name of former Rep. Gil Cisneros.

San Francisco voters have recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, CNN projects.

Boudin was narrowly swept into office in 2019, amid voters’ concerns over police misconduct, criminal justice reform and mass incarceration in the city. His win was seen as a high point for the movement to elect more progressive prosecutors. 

But his tenure was defined by the coronavirus pandemic and an overwhelming sense among San Francisco residents that crime, especially property crime, was both out of control and not a priority for the district attorney. This caused the political winds to shift dramatically against Boudin, with most San Francisco residents signaling on Tuesday that his laxer approach to certain kinds of crime was unacceptable.

The recall was also much about the impressions people in San Francisco have of their own city as it was about crime rates. Homelessness and public drug use remain a persistent issue in the city, and residents have reported feeling uncomfortable in large swaths of commercial areas because of it.

Boudin sought to fight the recall effort by labeling it a natural reaction to the election of a progressive prosecutor and linking the effort to Republicans and police unions.

But those claims didn’t move voters, many of whom said they had made their minds up based on how they felt in their city. And while Republican money did help the effort, the push to recall Boudin was initially supported by Democrats.

The result in San Francisco will have national implications, too, underscoring just how risky it will be for Democrats to go too far on certain core issues such as combatting crime.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is now set to appoint an interim district attorney.  

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California will advance to the special general election for the remainder of Vice President Kamala Harris’ term, CNN projects. CNN also projects that he will make the ballot for the regular general election in November for the full six-year term that starts in January.

Padilla was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 to the seat Harris vacated when she became vice president.

Incumbent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California will advance to the general election, CNN projects.

Newsom, who comfortably beat back an attempt to recall him last year, is seeking a second term.

Concerns about crime and homelessness are on display in two of the biggest Democratic cities in California as voters cast their ballots in the primary election on Tuesday.

Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst, said the issues of safety are sending “shockwaves” through the political landscape — both narrowly in local elections and more broadly as Democrats fight for control in Congress in November.

Brownstein said it also shows the challenges Democrats face as a party “when people feel certainty is withdrawn from their life.”

“When you are the party in power and people feel like they can’t count on basic rules of, kind of, you know, daily life — from the price of gas to the ability to walk their kids to school without being accosted by someone who seems like a danger to themselves or to others, that I think is a very dangerous position for the party in power,” he said.

Real estate developer Rick Caruso and US Rep. Karen Bass have emerged as the frontrunners in the race for Los Angeles mayor to succeed term-limited Democrat Eric Garcetti. Caruso has made crime a focus of his campaign.

Caruso, who served as a former city police commissioner, has poured millions of his own money into the race, pledging to tackle corruption, and homelessness and address the city’s crime rate by increasing the size of the police force. In a television ad, the former Republican said he was running “because the city we love is in a state of emergency,” citing “rampant homelessness” and “people living in fear for their safety.”

In San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is facing a recall election. He facescriticism that his progressive prosecutor model has made the city less safe.

A number of high-profile, viral shoplifting incidents, rancor in Boudin’s office and a broader, national pushback against his style of law enforcement — which prioritizes rehabilitation over the “tough on crime” approach — is putting Boudin’s fate in doubt.

CNN’s Eric Bradner, Dan Merica and Gregory Krieg contributed reporting to this post.

Mississippi Rep. Steven Palazzo is headed to a Republican primary runoff, CNN projects, putting the incumbent in danger of losing his seat amid a series of ethics controversies. The second spot in the runoff is too early to call.

Palazzo is on track to collect the most votes in a seven-candidate field, but fell significantly short of the majority needed to clinch the nomination, setting up a one-on-one race against one of his fellow candidates on June 28.  

A military veteran, Palazzo was first elected during the tea party wave of 2010. But a report last year from the Office of Congressional Ethics last year found “substantial” evidence he used campaign and congressional funds for personal use, sent staff on personal errands and sought to wield his official power to help his brother reenlist in the Navy.

The report was taken up for review by the House Ethics Committee. 

Palazzo has denied any wrongdoing, but his political vulnerabilities stretched beyond ethics concerns – and made him a prime target for a primary challenge from a number of well-known figures in the Gulf Coast district.

Despite railing against proxy-voting and joining a lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to end the practice, Palazzo has frequently taken advantage of the option – leading to charges of hypocrisy from his primary rivals that had already pounced on old nickname coined by some early critics: “No-Show Palazzo.”

Palazzo didn’t help his own case when he skipped out of a candidate forum in May, citing “meetings dealing with national security,” only to post pictures online of him and his son eating at a local restaurant during the event.