Santa Clara County District Legal professional Jeff Rosen is headed to a fourth time period after preliminary returns present him steadily clearing the 50-percent threshold to bypass a November runoff, together with his two challengers trailing by appreciable margins in his solely contested election since he was first voted into workplace 12 years in the past.
Rosen touted himself as a confirmed chief and the one candidate with tangible credentials to guide the state’s second-largest district lawyer’s workplace, and ran a comparatively low-key marketing campaign reflective of an incumbent with distinguished political backing and strong fundraising.
“Santa Clara County leads the best way in expertise, range, and the good and balanced manner we try to deal with felony justice,” Rosen stated in a press release Tuesday night time. “Immediately’s vote as soon as once more exhibits there's a mandate for security and equity. Not one on the expense of the opposite, however each.”
With re-election seemingly firmly in grasp, Rosen acknowledged his opponents, Deputy Public Defender Sajid Khan, and former prosecutor Daniel Chung, a former prosecutor who Rosen fired from his workplace final 12 months.
“Though I disagree with their political positions, I respect the Democratic precept of those that additionally ran for this very important job. I hope they proceed to make use of their ardour to assist folks,” Rosen stated.
Khan, Rosen’s most energetic opponent, ran on a heavy reform platform and positioned himself as a transformative progressive candidate within the mould of San Francisco District Legal professional Chesa Boudin — who was recalled from workplace by voters Tuesday — and Los Angeles County District Legal professional George Gascón.
That made the voting splits shocking, after Rosen garnered almost 59% of the vote counts rising Tuesday night time. The profile of Khan’s marketing campaign, backed by by grassroots criminal-justice reformers and among the similar forces that ushered Boudin and Gascón into workplace, would have urged that he would have completed second to Rosen.
As a substitute, with about 16% of the vote, on Tuesday night time, Khan was trailing former prosecutor Daniel Chung, whose largest declare to fame is that he's suing Rosen, who he says fired him after he wrote an op-ed criticizing criminal-justice reforms with out the specific approval of his boss.
Chung threw his hat into the race and introduced himself as a tough-on-crime candidate and ran a bare-bones marketing campaign that as of Tuesday night time was forward of Khan by almost 8 share factors.
“I feel coming in second is extraordinary,” Chung stated Tuesday night time. “It speaks to what I noticed on the bottom, which is that individuals have been very dissatisfied with the established order. There’s a craving for change. Whoever is elected subsequent needs to be involved with that.”
Chung added: “I didn’t have their cash, endorsements or title recognition, and my message nonetheless resonated with the voters of Santa Clara County. I’m grateful that everybody heard me regardless of my lack of conventional metrics.”
Khan’s marketing campaign confronted among the similar type of law-and-order pushback that beset Boudin. In the identical vein, Khan emphasised that the motion to finish the state’s reliance on jails and prisons as a criminal offense resolution will outlive his particular person DA candidacy.
“I’m actually happy with the marketing campaign that we ran, and actually happy with the problems and issues we have been in a position to increase and domesticate in our neighborhood, and the grassroots help we have been in a position to earn,” Khan stated Tuesday night time. “I’m going to maintain doing the work as a public defender combating in opposition to mass incarceration, and dealing to heal systemic racism. We’ll hold exhibiting up within the courtroom and outdoors the courtroom, and embody and manifest these values.”
Throughout his marketing campaign, Khan stated he discovered “there’s an urge for food for what we characterize.”
“This can be a very various county, crammed with a medley of human beings, a lot of whom live on the margins and are actually struggling, many who've been harmed and criminalized by our felony authorized system,” he stated. “We’re going to maintain combating to meet the dignity and security of individuals in our neighborhood.”