A FRISCO ‘QUAKE’ BEING FELT IN NYC
DA recall jolts lefty primaries
It’s the Chesa effect. The recall of soft-on-crime San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin could spell doom in the Aug. 23 primaries for Big Apple-area progressives, experts told The Post.
“People want protection from crime, and if they are the victims of crime, they want to see justice done,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.
Boudin was elected in 2019, promising a hands-off approach to prosecution — which promptly ushered in a crime wave. Over the past year, homicides rose more than 11% in San Francisco, rape was up 9% and thefts spiked more than 20%, police data show.
Major crime categories are also up this year in New York City — by a staggering 38.4%, police data show.
But New York has no mechanism for recalling public servants. The state’s criminal-justice crusaders will have to contend with the voters, and that is where experts say police-defunders and other softon-crime progressive candidates may face a summer reckoning.
“In the ’60s there was this bumper sticker: ‘Next time you need help, call a hippie,’ ” Sabato said.
Ana María Archila
In a different year, Ana María Archila could have been candidate who rode a progressive wave. The activist and political outsider became a leftist cult figure in 2018 when she confronted then-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) in a Capitol Hill elevator over his plans to vote for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Archila’s primary challenge for lieutenant governor has racked up big-ticket progressive endorsements, but she is saddled with many of the same positions and progressive baggage that doomed Boudin.
In June 2020, she tweeted, “@NYCMayor @NYCCouncil your turn!” after quoting a Minneapolis lawmaker’s pledge to “dismantle” that city’s police department and “dramatically rethink how we approach public safety.”
And this past March, she tweeted, “There is simply no evidence to support rolling back bail reform” and called on Gov. Hochul and then-Lt. Gov. Benjamin to “stop your reckless attempt to further criminalize Black and brown New Yorkers.”
There has been no polling in the race, but insiders says she has missed the moment.
“She hasn’t caught any fire despite having lots of endorsements and having campaigned for a much longer time than [opponent] Antonio Delgado, and the messaging that she is running on is not the messaging of where we are now,” said Chris Coffey, CEO of the political consulting shop Tusk Strategies.
Alessandra Biaggi
Another titanic progressive-vs.-moderate clash is brewing in upstate New York, where Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, will face off against far-left state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi for a House seat representing the Hudson River district that includes Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties.
Maloney, a Clinton White House veteran, is an established incumbent who has served in Congress since 2013.
While Maloney has some baggage on crime issues, he has pushed back against the movement to “defund the police” that many members of his party embraced during a period of Black Lives Matter protests and riots after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
In May, Maloney announced $900,000 in funding for his district to beef up police and blasted defunding efforts as “nuts.”
Progressives are pinning their hopes on Biaggi, who has already received the backing of the state’s most famous defund-the-police champion, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens). Biaggi has been a proud defund-thepolice advocate and once called cops “soulless.”
Locals say that the district is moderate and that the carpetbaggers would not be welcome.
“The Democrats here are propolice,” said Scott Reing, ex-chairman of the Putnam County Democratic Party. “If Alessandra Biaggi — who doesn’t live here — comes in with that kind of rhetoric, it’s going to fall on deaf ears.”
Brittany Ramos DeBarros
Former Rep. Max Rose finds himself in a unique position of being both a front-runner and underdog in his race to reclaim his old House seat on Staten Island.
While new district lines have given his GOP rival, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, an advantage in the general election, voter discontent among progressives will likely give him a leg up in his Democratic primary race against fellow Army veteran and one-time burlesque dancer Brittany Ramos DeBarros.
As a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she has called prisons “a racist tool to put down whole populations” in a tweet advocating on behalf of Palestinian terrorists.
Her campaign website promises “care, not criminalization” and other criminal-justice bromides. She has vowed to refuse campaign donations from police and correctional unions.