Ms. Oloumi said she believed Mr. Boudin never fully embraced the role of a prosecutor.
“He seems to value the perpetrators greater than the victims,” she said.
David Lee, a political science lecturer at San Francisco State University, said the 2 recall elections in San Francisco — the Board of Education members in February and Mr. Boudin on Tuesday — were a clarion call by an surly electorate.
“There’s anger on the failure of presidency, the failure of city hall, to handle pressing problems,” Mr. Lee said. On the precipice of a generational changing of the guard in San Francisco — two iconic San Franciscans, Nancy Pelosi, the home speaker, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, are within the twilight of their careers — voters are sending a message of frustration and hankering for change, Mr. Lee said. This was very true of Asian American voters, he believes.
“In San Francisco, a 3rd of the population is Asian and so they don’t feel like anyone is listening to them — City Hall or the Democratic establishment,” he said.
At the identical time, many political analysts cautioned to not read an excessive amount of into the result since it reflected the dynamics of a recall election: When Mr. Boudin was elected in 2019 he received only 36 percent of the vote in the primary round of voting. Within the third round, under town’s ranked alternative system, he ultimately inched ahead of his essential rival for the job, Suzy Loftus, by a couple of thousand votes.
“In a recall election, you’re running against yourself,” said Willie Brown, the previous mayor of San Francisco. Mr. Brown said he voted to maintain Mr. Boudin in office as a protest against the recall process. But he was also critical of Mr. Boudin, whom he described as “a warrior for the downtrodden.”
“That’s what he’s,” Mr. Brown said. “He’s definitely not a prosecutor.”
Holly Secon contributed reporting.
