--- title: California Democrats Were in a NIMBY Mood on Tuesday description: Efforts to remake the justice system in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement collided with fears of surging crime and lawlessness. canonical: https://time.com/6185537/democrats-california-crime-elections/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-06-08T18:55:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:21:22.016Z article:section: Politics og:title: California Democrats Were in a NIMBY Mood on Tuesday og:description: The results in Los Angeles and San Francisco should be a wake-up call to national Democrats. og:url: https://time.com/6185537/democrats-california-crime-elections/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt752ded424bdb3880/698a329f4ee262c90231a46d/GettyImages-1240630308.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Buscaino drops out of mayoral race - during the COVID19 pandemic og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: California Democrats Were in a NIMBY Mood on Tuesday twitter:description: The results in Los Angeles and San Francisco should be a wake-up call to national Democrats. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt752ded424bdb3880/698a329f4ee262c90231a46d/GettyImages-1240630308.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # California Democrats Were in a NIMBY Mood on Tuesday  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jun 8, 2022 6:55 PM UTC  Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, center, at a campaign event at The Grove in Los Angeles on May 12, 2022\. Caruso advanced to a November runoff in the mayor’s race on Tuesday. Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, center, at a campaign event at The Grove in Los Angeles on May 12, 2022\. Caruso advanced to a November runoff in the mayor’s race on Tuesday.Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jun 8, 2022 6:55 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Tuesday’s [results](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/07/primaries-june-7-california-new-jersey/) in California could have hardly been more unambiguous. Voters in Los Angeles narrowed the field of candidates looking to follow term-limited Mayor Eric Garcetti to a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and a billionaire ex-Republican who [ran](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-03/la-crime-targeting-rich-shifts-mayor-race-to-billionaire-caruso) on a tough-on-crime, anti-homeless platform. In San Francisco, voters booted the district attorney, who [ran](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/us/san-francisco-recall-chesa-boudin.html) in 2019 as a criminal-justice reformer but came to be seen as too lax in maintaining order there. The one-two punch stopped some Democratic strategists cold. Efforts to remake the justice system in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement have quickly collided with fears that public safety is falling by the wayside. Even in liberal havens like California, many considered what they viewed as an unacceptable surge in public disorder—wanton homeless camps, smash-and-grab burglaries, needles on sidewalks—and voted accordingly. Republican strategists for months have been treating the 2022 midterm elections as a referendum on security, both economic and physical. Insecurity and the correlating fears and anxieties can do a number on an electorate’s psyche, and it clearly [manifested](https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/04/politics/los-angeles-mayors-race-rick-caruso/index.html) that way in California, a state not exactly known for reactionary steps of late. The fact that real-estate developer Rick Caruso was leading Rep. Karen Bass by 5 percentage points was something of a shock in famously liberal Los Angeles, given Caruso’s recent history as a Republican. But Caruso was an unflinching advocate for adding 1,500 officers to the city’s police department and more broadly cleaning-up the city with its 60,000 homeless [residents](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/politics/los-angeles-homeless-crisis/index.html). (Caruso’s $39 million in out-of-pocket [spending](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/us/politics/rick-caruso-karen-bass-la-mayor.html) didn’t hurt, either.) And the quick ditch of Chesa Boudin as San Francisco’s district attorney suggested voters blamed him for scenes of criminality unfolding more often in public view. While the city’s crime stats tell a more nuanced story, the [perception](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/06/cehsa-boudin-recall/) was [everything](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chesa-boudin-recall-election-san-francisco-district-attorney/), and Boudin was [on track](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/07/us/elections/results-california.html?name=styln-2022-midterms®ion=TOP%5FBANNER&block=storyline%5Fmenu%5Frecirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&variant=show&is%5Fnew=false#DA) for a 20-percentage-point drubbing. That sends a clear warning to Los Angeles’s district attorney, George Gascon, who soon could face his own recall [effort](https://nypost.com/2022/06/08/la-officials-warn-da-george-gascon-after-chesa-boudin-recall/) over a similar reputation as soft-on-crime. It’s easy to over-extrapolate national implications from local results, but the pattern has been emerging for some time. On the East Coast, both New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have seen their polling numbers collapse, with three-quarters of Gotham residents [telling](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/new-yorkers-really-dont-like-adams-hochul-because-of-crime.html) pollsters they fear for their personal safety. National polls indicate shrinking [support](https://www.umass.edu/news/article/new-national-umass-amherst-poll-finds-decreasing-support-police-reform-black-lives) for both policing reform policies and the Black Lives Matter movement itself. And the recent slate of mass shootings has also taken its toll on the nation’s mood. For his part, President Joe Biden has been consistently [warning](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/08/biden-campaign-rejects-defund-police-307401) against the liberal slide of his Democratic Party when it comes to policing. In his State of the Union speech, he absolutely [rejected](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/01/state-of-the-union-2022-fund-police-00013065) any embrace of efforts to defund the police. As homicide rates have [spiked](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/21/homicide-rates-have-soared-nationwide-mayors-see-chance-turnaround-2022/) across the country, he has sought to crack down on guns and [spend](https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/03/28/fact-sheet-president-bidens-budget-invests-in-reducing-gun-crime-to-make-our-communities-safer/) more on police. And his White House has been working with party organs to reframe the conversation away from far-left policies like Medicare for All and blanket student-loan forgiveness and back toward a [message](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/18/progressive-democratic-primary-wins-00033557) that connects in the suburbs. That doesn’t mean the broader Democratic Party is always [listening](https://www.vox.com/23133054/primaries-midterm-progressives-moderate-center-fetterman-lamb) to its leader. Take Iowa, where Democrats are hoping to unseat Senator Chuck Grassley in November. On Tuesday night, Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral, [defeated](https://apnews.com/article/2022-iowa-senate-primary-12b00ff17c52e128ddc052cd5f7e6fa4) Abby Finkenauer, a former House member with a track record of drawing support from independents, by [running](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/05/iowa-primary-elections-2022-tuesday-june-7-heres-what-watch-for/9855665002/) to her left. Defeating Grassley in that solidly-red state was always going to be a tough lift, but having a never-before-elected nominee makes the math even tougher. And just last month, Democrats in Pennsylvania went with an unconventional [contender](https://time.com/6175747/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-senate-primary/), John Fedderman, as their Senate nominee for a rare open seat, even as the party insiders had their hearts—if not their votes—with moderate Rep. Conor Lamb. But despite those wins by progressives, there are signs the broader Democratic electorate is undulating back toward a pre-2020 mentality, one that allowed Biden to capture the nomination amid perhaps the most progressive and diverse presidential field ever assembled. As Democrats look around and see undeniable scenes of chaos on the streets, in schools, and even in Washington, their desire for _normalcy_ seems triggered. It’s one thing to support a liberalized policing policy in theory, but it’s another to see elected officials supporting such shifts amid fears that crime and homelessness are surging in places long perceived as immune to those safety-net failures. Tuesday provided the clearest sign yet that Democrats are in a NIMBYish mood—and it may save them from deep defeats this November. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6185537/democrats-california-crime-elections/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6185537/democrats-california-crime-elections/"},"headline":"California Democrats Were in a NIMBY Mood on Tuesday","datePublished":"2022-06-08T18:55:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T14:21:22.016Z","description":"National Democrats need to listen to what California voters told them about crime and public safety.","url":"https://time.com/6185537/democrats-california-crime-elections/","keywords":["The D.C. 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