Progressive Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt conceded victory to a tough-on-crime rival after his policies were blamed for ruining the city.
Schmidt, the prosecutor for Multnomah County, which covers Oregon City, conceded the race to Nathan Vasquez shortly after 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Voter counting is underway, but Vásquez has garnered about 54% of the vote, with Schmidt far behind at 45%.
The Soros-backed progressive was elected with 77 percent of the vote in 2020 after touting a series of policies focused on “fairness,” in a county that hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1960.
Vasquez also works as a Multnomah County prosecutor, but decided to stand up to his boss after accusing him of ruining the city.
Portland District Attorney Mike Schmidt Pledged ‘Equity-Centered’ Policies After His 2020 Election
Challenger Nathan Vasquez unseated him after promising a tough-on-crime approach.
Schmidt issued the following statement: “It appears I will not serve another four years as Multnomah County District Attorney.
‘I called Nathan Vasquez to congratulate him on his victory. While we don’t always agree, I am committed to a smooth transition.
‘Thank you to this incredible community for the support you have shown for this campaign. And thank you for the opportunity to serve these last four years. It is an honor that I will treasure for a lifetime.”
Schmidt’s loss means he has now become one of the most high-profile victims of a nationwide backlash against liberal prosecutors after a fierce election battle against one of his own prosecutors.
“He set the bar incredibly low for me, and when he takes office, it will literally be me trying not to trip over that bar,” Vasquez said.
Schmidt was elected in May 2020, just before the death of George Floyd and the riots that pulverized cities across the country.
He promised not to prosecute rioters unless there was evidence of “deliberate damage to property, theft or threat of force”, and of 550 cases referred by the police only 47 went to trial.
Oregon became the first state to decriminalize possession of all hard drugs in 2020, and Schmidt rushed to implement the measure several months before it took effect statewide.
But fatal opioid overdoses rose from 280 in 2019 to 628 in just the first six months of last year, when nearly 800 homeless encampments and open-air drug markets sprang up downtown.
More than 2,600 businesses had fled the city center by September 2022, as shoppers avoided downtown areas and retail thefts began to rise.
The city council voted to cut $15 million from the police budget in 2020 in response to the defunding of the police movement.
But homicides rose from 57 to a record 96 in Schmidt’s first two years in office.
“What I hear when I knock on doors is, ‘Hey, I consider myself very liberal, but this is out of step: They’re not serving us well,'” Vásquez told Politico.
Drug deaths in Portland increased from 280 in 2019 to 628 in just the first six months of last year.
Homelessness increased 65 percent to more than 6,300 between 2015 and 2023
Schmidt promised not to prosecute rioters unless there was evidence of “deliberate damage to property, theft or threat of force”, and of 550 cases referred by the police only 47 went to trial.
‘People definitely want public safety. This does not mean that people are completely abandoning the idea of criminal justice reform. They just want it to be delivered in a pragmatic and practical way.
“It is quite clear that I am the only candidate in this race who is consistently in office prosecuting serious cases, advocating for victims, and providing the current and dedicated leadership that my fellow prosecutors need day in and day out.”
Vasquez said he was “optimistic and very hopeful” when the results started coming in and his rival lost ground across the city to the surprise of some observers.
“There’s this dynamic that’s playing out in Portland, where I think is probably the most active and politically active place, where a lot of opinion leaders live, doesn’t reflect where the general type of voters are in the community in terms of public safety. and crime. , drug use, homelessness,” John Horvick of the polling firm DHM Research told Oregon Live.
Politics professor Todd Lochner said the same pattern is likely to play out across the country.
“Starting in 2020 or so, you see this rise of the progressive prosecutor, but some of those candidates were essentially replaced or removed,” he told the Free Press.
Several big-name employers, including Umpqua Bank, have closed amid the mass exodus, carried out by owners who have taken issue with rising crime levels and the city’s failure to address it.
‘I think what’s happening now in the district attorney race has something to do with this backlash against what is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as prosecutors who are not as enthusiastic about convicting people as some they would prefer.
‘Generally speaking, tough talk on crime sells well.
‘Most voters routinely say that crime is important to them. We know that homelessness is a very important issue.
“And I would expect that if people perceive that those problems are not materially improving, then they would vote for the challenger on the premise that, well, let’s let someone else try.”
