As Haley drops out, Biden welcomes her supporters. In LA, Defenders of Justice in fight for run-off, echoing national trends
After both President Biden and former President Trump won almost every Super Tuesday race, Trump’s last challenger, Nikki Haley, suspended her campaign, and Biden immediately reached out to her voters.
“Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters,” Biden said in a written statement. “I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign. I know there is a lot we won’t agree on. But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”
In North Carolina, Republicans nominated a Trump-backed Holocaust-denier for Governor, putting the state even more in play for Biden, who lost the state by just 1.34% in 2020—his narrowest loss that year. Trump has called Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is black, “Martin Luther King on steroids.” Robinson, in turn, has called King an “ersatz pastor” and a “communist.” In addition to Holocaust denial, he’s entertained a wide range of conspiracy theories, even saying he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the 1969 moon landing was fake and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job.” He’s also made bigoted comments about women, Muslims and the LGBTQ community, condemning it as “filth.”
Like other Trump-backed extremists in the past, Robinson could easily cost Republicans 3 to 5 points or more in November, handing North Carolina to Biden, thus off-setting the potential loss of Michigan due to Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Here in LA, initial results—with roughly half the votes counted—show two public defenders running for county judge in close races to make the two-person November run-off, while a third seems assured. Reform DA George Gascon is leading in a field of 12 but will face a certain run-off, while Supervisor Janice Hahn holds a commanding 20+ point lead (54.7% – 30.5%) over scandal-plagued former Sheriff Alex Villanueva as a supposed “law and order” candidate, but she could still face a run-off if her total falls below 50%. Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank was a distant third with 14.7%.
In judicial races, Ericka J. Wiley received 42.64% of the votes for office #48, trailing Renee Rose with 47.02%. George Turner is currently third in a tight three-way race for office #39, trailing the leading candidate, Steve Napolitano, by 1.57% and the second-place candidate, Jacob Lee by 0.43%. La Shae Henderson trails Sam Abourched by 2.82% for second place in the race for Office 97, far behind Sharon Ransom’s 48.91%. But she still could win in November, if she manages to make the run-off. Even a losing campaign would be a crucial opportunity to educate the public about the alternatives to harsh punishment already written into law, but not being used to their potential.
Education vs. misinformation is bound to be center stage in the DA’s race, as Reform DA George Gascon leads all challengers with 21.4% compared to 17.7% for Nathan Hochman, with only one other candidate in double-digits in a field of a dozen. “Crime is down, but fear is up,” as an LA Times headline put it last October. And Gascon’s opponents all were running on fear. With only one opponent going forward, there’s a chance for a more coherent picture to prevail.
“My message to the community is, if I am granted another term, we’re going to continue to work hard, we’re going to continue to evolve, and we’re going to hopefully get to creating a criminal justice system that is not only fair and equitable but is much more efficient, more effective than we’ve had in the past,” Gascón said late Tuesday afternoon, according to KABC.
County Measure HLA—which would fully implement the already approved Mobility Plan—held a commanding 25-point lead (62.73-37.27%), while Long Beach Measure RW—raising the wages of Long Beach hotel workers to $23/hour immediately, and $29.50/hour by 2028—led by a razor-thin margin, 50.29-49.71%.
While the national media has been flooded with rightwing scare stories about rising crime, specifically tied to migrants—who traditionally have much lower crime rates than natural-born citizens—the overall results, both local and national, suggest that this has had less electoral impact than expected. Perhaps most notably, in a race that drew national attention, Austin Texas progressive DA Jose Garza cruised to a 2-1 victory (66.86-33.14%) over an Elon Musk-backed challenger. Musk even sent his Austin-based employees an email urging them to vote Garza out in the closing hours of the campaign, but Garza easily withstood Musk’s infamous trolling.
The challenge between now and November is to ensure that facts continue to win out over fear.