Yesterday, we took a fairly deep look into the race for the office of District Attorney in Portland, Oregon. (Technically it's Multnomah County, but that's comprised almost entirely of Portland.) Mike Schmidt, the incumbent, has been a Soros-style, soft-on-crime DA who pushed efforts to defund the police, empty the jails, and legalize everything possible. He was being challenged by one of his own deputies named Nathan Vasquez. Vasquez promised to clean up the city and start locking up the bad guys, earning him the endorsement of the police unions. By the end of the evening, it became clear that the race wasn't going to be a blowout in either direction, but Vasquez was carrying the day. Before midnight, the local news media had called the race for Vasquez because there weren't enough outstanding ballots left to count to overcome his lead. (KPTV News)

Nathan Vasquez challenged his boss, incumbent Mike Schmidt, and overcame on Tuesday night, to become the next District Attorney of Multnomah County.

As soon as the results from Tuesday’s primary election started coming in at 8 p.m., Vasquez was on top of Schmidt with a sizeable lead.

By 9:30 p.m., FOX 12 Political Analyst John Horvick called the race for Vasquez after seeing no possible path to victory for Schmidt.

Vasquez's lead held at 58% to 44%. As I said, that's not an avalanche, but it's still quite a significant margin. Interestingly, it is almost the same ratio that showed up when Washington voters chose to recriminalize hard drugs. That doesn't seem as if it's a coincidence. Vasquez should have the public on his side moving forward, though not in a unanimous fashion. 

Vasquez will probably look back on his campaign as having been the easy part. Once he is sworn in, the hard work will begin and there will be plenty of it to address. He can immediately announce new department policies reversing those of Schmidt, but he will also have to deal with a number of personnel issues. He can announce all of the policies he likes, but that's not going to change the conditions in the city if he doesn't have people willing to enforce those guidelines.

One of the most immediate questions to address will be the future of Mike Schmidt. Will he be kept on as a deputy and simply reverse roles with Vasquez? After having worked together for several years, it would probably look rather vindictive for Vasquez to summarily dismiss Schmidt, but could the former DA be trusted to follow Vasquez's policies and not drift back to his old, progressive habits when he steps into a courtroom? If the two men can have a frank, honest conversation about this then it would probably be better for Vasquez to keep Schmidt around and give him a chance. If he starts going rogue, he can always be dismissed or demoted later.

That doesn't address all of the challenges facing Vasquez, however. Even if everyone at the DA's office is operating from the same playbook, they will still undoubtedly be facing many of the same judges when they go to court. The prosecution can bring stiffer charges and ask for greater penalties, potentially securing more convictions. But when the time comes for sentencing, the judge is not bound under the rules to follow the prosecution's requests. In fact, they rarely do. Some of Portland's worst repeat offenders might begin building up a more significant rap sheet, but that won't make the city any safer if they are put back out on the streets just as quickly. 

In the end, this may turn out to be a piecemeal project for the voters of Portland and it could take some time. New judges will probably have to be seated, and the voters don't always have much of a say as to who is placed behind the bench. In order for true, sweeping changes to take place, a thorough housecleaning would be needed from the Governor's office right down to street level. As I said, that could take time if it's even possible at all. But in the meantime, there is hope for at least some improvements in the near future. After you've been dealing with everything that Portland has suffered over the past four years, you'll probably take whatever you can get. After all, half a loaf is still better than none.