Portland prosecutor Mike Schmidt’s defeat underscores challenges Democrats face on crime

The defeat of a progressive prosecutor in a race for Oregon district attorney this week underscores the delicate dance Democrats face on the issues of crime and public safety before November.

Prosecutor Mike Schmidt, who served the Portland area, was removed from his position after a primary challenge from one of his own colleagues, who presented himself as tougher on crime than his boss and ended up winning by a margin of about eight points.

It was a remarkable rise and fall for an official elected to office on a progressive platform months before protests erupted that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Since then, deep blue Oregon has endured increase in crimehad the third highest rate of lack of housing in the country and we have seen growing tensions throughout drug decriminalization efforts and a continuous fentanyl crisis.

His defeat also comes as Republicans attack Democrats on these issues ahead of the election. For many observers, the race underscores the degree to which crime is emerging as a key issue, even in the bluest regions of the country.

“It has to be a conversation on both sides,” said Portland Democratic analyst Jake Weigler, “that you can talk about racism and systemic inequities within the justice system, but if the public doesn’t have confidence that they are still able to enforce the law and create accountability, that your patience to try to innovate and reform the system will quickly wane.”

Schmidt’s defeat this week is just one of several recent examples that suggest Democratic voters are looking to distance themselves from progressive policies four years after Floyd’s killing led to a surge in calls for police reform and some on the left to amplify calls to “defund the police.”

In Seattle, voters in 2021 chosen a Republican to be city attorney, ignoring a candidate who called for the abolition of the police. Two years ago, voters in San Francisco initialized Chesa Boudin, who ran on Progressive Reforms in 2020, as prosecutor.

This year in Alameda County, California, a progressive district attorney faces a revoke vote as detractors to discuss Pamela Price is “failing in her responsibility to enforce the law, prosecute criminals and keep violent offenders off our streets.” Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon also faced remember efforts which failed to make it to the vote.

Since the tumultuous summer of 2020, Democratic officials have sought to openly reject the slogan “defund the police.” Meanwhile, President Biden has been carefully walking a tightrope on the issues of police reform and crime.

On Friday, in recognition of the four-year anniversary of Floyd’s death, the White House published a fact sheet highlighting the steps it has taken to enact police reform, including Biden’s signing of an executive order aimed at increasing police accountability. police.

But Biden also made a concerted effort to praise law enforcement. Earlier this month, he attended a memorial honoring fallen officers, where he praised both the work of the police and his administration’s handling of the issue.

“It is no coincidence that violent crime is near a 5-year low,” Biden said at the Capitol event. “This is due to the extraordinary efforts of all of you and your communities, along with historic steps taken to support you.”

The president also decided to fund the police and hire new police officers.

The measures come as Republicans repeatedly blame their administration for rising crime rates. But while Donald Trump and his campaign frequently hammer Democrats on this issue, government data suggests that violent crime has declined in recent years, which Biden has touted as he runs for another four years.

Since 2021, concerns about crime have grown on both sides of the aisle, according to the Pew Research Center — and earlier this year, nearly 60 percent of Americans said reducing crime should be a “top policy priority.” ” in the country this year. A Gallup survey since late last year found personal safety fears at a three-decade high across the country.

Against this backdrop, the Oregon prosecutor’s race was seen as a barometer for the public’s stance – in blue hotbed no less – on the issues of crime and public safety, which have taken center stage ahead of the Tuesday’s primaries.

Vasquez, Schmidt’s opponent, ran on a platform that stressed that “even ‘small’ crimes, such as theft, vandalism and littering, public use of illicit drugs, and public drugs, all contribute to the general feeling of safety and well-being of a community. ”

His candidacy came as Oregon saw homelessness soar amid the pandemic and the 2020 approval of a first-in-the-nation election measurethat the promoter supportedwhich decriminalized quantities of hard drugs for personal use, such as heroin, methamphetamines, fentanyl and cocaine.

Measure 110 was intended to use police as a route to rehabilitation for drug users, but advocates say state leaders have failed to bolster the infrastructure needed to make that work. Oregon saw peaks in overdose deaths in the years since its implementation.

Adding to Schmidt’s challenges was the fact that he was linked to the social unrest that occurred in the city following Floyd’s murder. The promoter announced at the time your office I wouldn’t go after many who were arrested during the demonstrations, and he contested at the time “We will undermine public safety, not promote it, if we do not take steps to bring about immediate change.”

By 2024, “the call is in,” John Horvick, senior vice president at Portland-based research and analytics firm DHM Research, said of the DA race. He pointed out that Schmidt still came within one digit reelection against Vasquez in Tuesday’s race, but highlighted the progressive prosecutor’s difficult climb amid Portland’s changing landscape.

“If you are the main police officer in the community [and] you have rising crime, you have unexplained outdoor drug use, you have 100 days of protests where people feel like there is no accountability – it’s very difficult to win in that environment,” Horvick said.

In April of this year, Oregon effectively reversed Measure 110, recriminalizing possession of small quantities.

“Sentiments around safety have increased so dramatically that they’ve just skyrocketed,” Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the Portland Metro Chamber, said of the last few years in the city. “[Schmidt] was hired to do a certain job, and then the job changed. And I think that’s why the appetite for leadership change from the county’s top prosecutor was so significant.”

Vasquez has criticized Measure 110, it hit Schmidt’s protest policy for 2020, and criticized his boss for “dysfunction” in the public prosecutor’s office, “from the lack of prosecution to the chaos in our community, from recorded homicides to rampant drug trafficking.”

O OregonianThe magazine’s editorial board endorsed Vasquez, praising Schmidt for leading “thoughtful initiatives to combat inequities in the criminal justice system” but labeling the office holder “disappointingly passive” on public safety issues.

“People want their communities to feel safe and are certainly open to the idea that we need to make our justice system more equitable and responsive to community needs, but that cannot happen at the expense of basic livability and quality of life. community life,” Weigler said.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s primary in Oregon also saw the success of an establishment-backed Democrat in one race for a key House seat, and the failure of Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D) progressive sister in another.

Hoan, whose office endorsed Vasquez, for the AD position, argued that the primaries were a “refinement” of progressivism rather than a direct rebuke of the blue state — a sign that candidates have to be practical rather than “purely ideologically progressive.”

Although the data showed Crime Rates in Portland were recovering by 2023, more than half of Portlanders in a December poll said they would consider leaving the city if they could, and more than two-thirds said the city is on the wrong path.

“They are seeing drug deals happening right in front of their homes, schools or coffee shops. And I think they are feeling this lawlessness quite aggressively,” Justin Matheson, a Republican consultant based in neighboring Washington, said of Multnomah County’s landscape. “And even in some of the deeper, more progressive regions… we’re probably going to see a lot of shifts in candidates who want more law and order.”

The Portland district attorney race adds mounting evidence, observers said, that Democrats need to focus on public safety and reconfigure their messaging as the issue gains prominence in cities across the country.

“The lessons learned that could be extrapolated into every conversation related to public safety are that you can maintain your progressive values, you can be a Democrat, and you can prioritize public safety and stand with victims,” Hoan said of what the A Portland DA race tells Democrats to move on. “They are not mutually exclusive.”