Multnomah County, Oregon, District Attorney Mike Schmidt — who oversees the progressive bastion of Portland — lost his re-election bid on Tuesday night to a moderate candidate who promises to carry out tough-on-crime policies.
Schmidt, the George Soros-backed incumbent, fell to Nathan Vasquez, who previously served as the Multnomah County deputy prosecutor under Schmidt. The leftist DA conceded on Wednesday with results showing that Vazquez had secured around 54% of the vote, Portland’s NBC affiliate KGW 8 reported.
“It is looking as if I will not be serving another four years as Multnomah County District Attorney,” Schmidt said. “I have called Nathan Vasquez to congratulate him on his victory. While we do not always see eye to eye, I am committed to a smooth transition.”
On Tuesday night before the race was called, Vasquez said that he was “hopeful” that the direction of the community was about to change.
“This is a time where I think a lot of people in our community are looking for that belief, that hope, and I think tonight is going to be a change in that direction,” Vasquez told KGW 8. “And I really want to deliver that to our community in a way that feels positive and hopeful, so that everyone in this community feels included, everyone feels like they can have a safe community where they can go to parks, they can go down the street and can really enjoy this wonderful, amazing city and county that we live in, and I’m just so hopeful for tonight.”
Schmidt was elected in 2020, winning 77% of the vote. He started his role as the district attorney in August of that year, a term that began during the summer of the George Floyd riots that saw numerous businesses looted and vandalized and a police station set on fire. One of Schmidt’s first acts as DA was to institute a new policy stating his office would not prosecute George Floyd demonstrators who were charged with certain crimes such as interfering with a police officer, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, harassment, or rioting unless they committed “deliberate property damage, theft, or threat of force against another person.”
After the riots died down, Portland continued to face high rates of violent crime. Despite a decrease in violent crimes in 2023 in the city, the homicide rate in Portland remained higher than reported numbers prior to 2019, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Shoplifting arrests also skyrocketed by 88% in 2023.
Schmidt’s opponent Vasquez also promised to crack down on open-air drug use in Oregon’s largest city, a problem that has persisted since Oregon voters decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs such as fentanyl and heroin in 2020. Last month, Oregon Democratic Governor Tina Kotek signed a bill into law that again criminalized the possession of hard drugs.
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“The voters have made it clear that they are ready to take our county in a new and safer direction,” Vasquez said on Wednesday. “I am committed to ending open air drug dealing and drug use while helping connect individuals to treatment, to rebuilding the broken relationships between the DA’s office and the community, and to ensuring that victims are the number one priority of my office.”