Jenkins officially wins D.A. race

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins will keep her job after defeating former police Commissioner John Hamasaki. Jenkins ran on a platform that promised to balance reform with safety and increase punishment for criminal defendants.

As of Sunday afternoon, Jenkins had 54% of the vote under the ranked-choice system while Hamasaki had 46%, with close to 20% of ballots still left to be counted. (In first-choice votes, Jenkins was leading with 47% of the vote compared with 37% for Hamasaki — but it is the rankedchoice votes that determine the final margin.)

Jenkins declared victory Wednesday. Hamasaki has yet to concede.

Jenkins, who was appointed by Mayor London Breed in July after voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, pledged to continue her push for more aggressive criminal prosecution.

“I am putting my foot on the gas, as it has been for the last four months. San Francisco is no longer a haven for crime,” Jenkins said Wednesday at an event in Chinatown. “The free pass is over.”

Jenkins quit her job in Boudin’s office last year to become the face of the recall campaign against him. By doing so, she established herself as a leading voice for critics who believed Boudin’s policies were too lenient and made San Francisco less safe. City data shows that San Francisco police officers have significantly stepped up street enforcement since Jenkins replaced Boudin, with traffic stops increasing nearly 30%.

But Jenkins has faced two serious ethical controversies during her tenure as District Attorney. Soon after she was appointed, financial disclosures revealed she was paid by recall supporters while presenting herself as a volunteer for the campaign. She has also been accused of improperly emailing confidential documents to a colleague when she was an assistant district attorney, which legal and ethics experts said may have been a misdemeanor violation of the law. Jenkins told The Chronicle that she “committed no crime.”

During his campaign, Hamasaki called violent crime a “top priority” and also pledged to crack down on wage theft, corporate crime, stolen goods rings and public corruption. Hamasaki had tried to set himself apart from the Breed-appointed Jenkins by calling himself “a completely independent District Attorney.”

The two other candidates for district attorney were civil rights attorney Joe Alioto Veronese and attorney Maurice Chenier.

Jenkins will finish out Boudin’s term, which ends in January 2025 after city voters moved local races to presidential election years.