This was not the election that politicians and pundits expected.

Defying the historical trends of midterms, Democrats held the U.S Senate and have a chance to expand their majority if they win a runoff in Georgia next month. Republicans are on the brink of capturing the U.S. House but their still-uncertain majority will be far tighter than they envisioned.

Democrats did even better in state-level fights. They defended or flipped most of the cycle’s competitive governorships, seized at least three legislative chambers, and defeated all election deniers who were running to take over election administration in battleground states. They also seized control of four state governments—Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota—which should yield major policy ramifications next year. 

The result is most historic in Michigan, which will experience its first period under Democratic governance since the early 1980s, and where voters also approved enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.

Republicans did score important wins, notably flipping control of North Carolina’s supreme court and Nevada’s governorship. But they have gained no state government as of now, and they have lost control of the state government in Arizona for the first time since 2009.

Bolts has updated its cheat sheet of more than 500 elections to watch with results that are known, so you can keep track of all these developments in one place.

But we are most focused at Bolts on the politics of criminal justice and voting rights, two areas where local officials wield tremendous powers but are often overlooked. Since Tuesday, the Bolts team has extensively reported on how the elections will affect political power on those issues. 

This post lays out all our findings—on prosecution, policing, immigration, voting rights, the politics of courts, and more.

— Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief

In secretary of state races, election deniers (mostly) lose

Ever since his failure to cling to power in 2020, Donald Trump hoped to install allies into the offices that run and certify elections in 2022. But voters last week repudiated the candidates who were signaling that they may override the wishes of the electorate.

All election deniers who ran for secretary of state in battleground states lost on Tuesday, blocking major avenues for the former president to manipulate the next election.

Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee in Nevada, came closest, losing by only two percentage points. Mark Finchem, an Arizona lawmaker who has championed proposals to decertify his own state’s presidential results, lost by a slightly wider margin. In Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico, incumbent Democrats crushed election deniers by margins ranging from 9 to 14 percentage points. And in Pennsylvania, voters resoundingly rejected a far-right candidate for governor who had promised to appoint a like-minded secretary of state, with the risk of throwing the election process into chaos.

Still, Republicans who ran on the Big Lie did not end up empty handed on Tuesday. A nationwide Bolts analysis found 12 election deniers who were running for secretary of state. Four of them won in red states: Alabama, Indiana, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Read more from Camille Squires and Daniel Nichanian in Bolts about how the Big Lie fared on Tuesday. 

Criminal justice reformers make inroads

Republicans bet that they would score gains in the midterms by attacking criminal justice reformers. But that strategy repeatedly failed last week, most notably in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Democratic nominee John Fetterman prevailed after relentless attacks over his record of promoting clemency for people incarcerated for life.

Reformers also made inroads in local races and are poised to take over new prosecutor offices.

Mary Moriarty, a career public defender who has clashed with the local police and prosecutors, will be the next prosecutor of Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis. After a campaign that encapsulated the local conflicts over policing and prosecution since George Floyd’s murder, she easily prevailed against a former judge who had argued that reform rhetoric was threatening public safety.​

Moriarty made the opposite case, impugning the effects on safety of decades of tough-on-crime policies. “I thought, people who really value public safety, and a fair and just system need to step up during this time of turmoil and really present options that aren’t the same old things we’ve had for decades, which haven’t kept us safer,” she told Bolts and Mother Jones in October.

Other candidates who emphasized a reform message also prevailed. Kimberly Graham, who represents abused and neglected children in court, won in Polk County (Des Moines), Iowa’s most populous county. Kelly Higgins, a defense attorney, won the DA race in fast-growing Hays County, Texas, after promising a “sea change;” he told Bolts that he was moved toward more progressive positions by a group of activists organizing in Central Texas. They join Memphis’s new DA, who ousted a tough-on-crime incumbent in August, in growing reform ranks. In Dallas and San Antonio, Democratic DAs who have come under GOP fire for their policies and have promised to not prosecute abortion beat tough-on-crime challengers.

In King County, home to Seattle, voters chose Leesa Manion over a candidate who wanted to bring more punitive practices to the county. Manion, who has cast herself as a cautious reformer rather than embrace progressive priorities, helped roll out reforms as chief of staff of the retiring prosecutor.

Reform candidates lost important races, though, in counties where they were challenging incumbent prosecutors. They fell short in Maricopa County, Arizona, Pinellas and Pasco counties, Florida, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, and Douglas County, Nebraska. In Maricopa, the nation’s fourth most populous county, Republican Rachel Mitchell defeated a Democratic challenger who promised to never prosecute abortion and to work to lower incarceration. In Plymouth, the defeat of a civil rights attorney adds to other losses by state progressives in September’s Democratic primaries.

One of the year’s most important DA races remains undecided, as candidates are separated by less than one percentage point with tens of thousands of ballots left to be counted in Alameda County (Oakland). 

Debates over police accountability shake up local elections

Running for DA in Oklahoma County, Republican Kevin Calvey vowed to drop the charges filed by the outgoing DA against five Oklahoma City police officers who shot and killed 15-year Stavian Rodriguez outside a convenience store. “I would have shot him myself,” he said during a primary forum. Calvey lost last week to Democrat Vicki Behenna.

The local Fraternal Order of Police in Marion County, Indiana, targeted chief prosecutor Ryan Mears this year and endorsed a Republican candidate who wanted to ramp up low-level arrests and prosecutions. Mears prevailed last week.

And in Los Angeles, Kenneth Mejia captured the office of controller after an unconventional campaign that highlighted the magnitude of police spending in the city, including putting up billboards visualizing the size of the LAPD budget compared to other city services. Throughout the Los Angeles region, many candidates backed by police groups were trailing as of the latest count, including Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race (against Karen Bass) and Suzie Price in the Long Beach mayoral race (against Rex Richardson).

In San Francisco, though, interim DA Brooke Jenkins, who replaced the reform-minded Chesa Boudin over the summer, prevailed against challengers who have criticized her handling of police accountability. Bolts reported two weeks ago that Boudin’s ouster has disrupted the prosecution of police officers who killed civilians, alarming victims’ families.

Ballot measures revamp voting rules

Ballot measures around the country resulted in expansive changes to election rules through reforms that are meant to increase turnout or make results more representative. 

The biggest expansion of ballot access came with Michigan’s Proposal 2, a catchall measure to make voting easier while also protecting against efforts to curtail voting rights launched in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. It will establish nine days of early in-person voting, create new mandates for townships to set up ballot drop boxes, and supply state-funded postage to vote by mail. Early voting also notched a win in Connecticut, where voters authorized the legislature to set up early voting.

Oakland, California revamped campaign finance by adopting a democracy vouchers program. In future local elections, the city will provide each eligible voter with four $25 vouchers to donate to candidates of their choice.

In at least seven localities, including the state of Nevada, voters approved ranked-choice voting, which could durably shake up political dynamics. The measure in Nevada must be passed a second time by voters in 2024 to go into effect.

Read more from Camille Squires in Bolts about the ballot measures and referendums that touched on democracy.

Measures to protect abortion triumph

Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont on Tuesday adopted constitutional amendments that enshrine abortion rights into their state constitutions. The result in Michigan will have the most immediate effects since, unlike California and Vermont, Michigan has a statutory ban on abortion on the books. Prosecutors were already preparing for questions about whether they will prosecute abortion cases.

Pro-choice advocates also scored victories in referendums that were organized by anti-abortion forces in Kentucky and Montana.

An analysis published by Bolts in July found that a dozen state supreme courts have ruled that their states’ constitution shields abortion access, a critical protection in the face of the federal judiciary’s refusal to protect reproductive rights. But until Tuesday, no state constitution explicitly declared such a right; judges in those states relied on provisions that talked about a right to privacy or about due process. California, Michigan, and Vermont are the first three states to add provisions into their constitution that explicitly codify the right to an abortion. 

Read more from Quinn Yeargain in Bolts about how abortion fared on the ballot, and the new state constitutional landscape after the midterms.

Wins and losses for state referendums to legalize weed and psychedelics 

Drug policy reformers saw mixed results last week. Voters in Maryland and Missouri supported proposals to legalize marijuana for recreational use, joining the 19 U.S. states that have already done so. 

However, similar proposals in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota all were shot down by voters.

Also, ten years to the week since Colorado and Oregon became the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana, Colorado voters are poised to approve a measure that removes criminal penalties for use, possession and home-grow of psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) and some other psychoactive substances. Oregon went first on this front with a measure decriminalizing those substances in 2020, though several conservative counties chose to opt-out last week. 

Read more from Alex Burness in Bolts about how drug policy fared on Tuesday.

Conservatives largely fail to oust sitting judges, but soar in two states

Mitch McConnell lost big last week, and not just because he failed to become the U.S. Senate Majority Leader. Back home in Kentucky, a local judge that has long drawn the right’s ire survived despite his opponent’s significant financial support from national conservatives, including McConnell’s PAC. 

Conservatives also lost in a series of efforts to oust sitting supreme court justices in Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, and New Mexico.

The Arkansas and Montana races were ostensibly nonpartisan, but two justices secured additional terms by beating candidates with deep ties to the GOP; the result in Arkansas is the right’s second loss of the year since they failed to oust another justice in May. In New Mexico, two Democratic justices won—at least one against a candidate who echoed election conspiracies—enabling the party to retain a large majority on the court. 

Democrats also retained their 4-3 edge on the Michigan supreme court; this was one of the biggest prizes of the night, with criminal justice, abortion, and voting cases hanging on the balance. They also maintained control of the hotly-disputed Illinois supreme court, one of the few that could have changed hands last week; they even expanded their majority by sweeping both seats on the ballot.

But GOP wins in two states will have vast consequences going forward.

North Carolina Republicans swept two seats and vaulted into a new majority on the high court. The results will have huge implications for redistricting, as the state must draw new maps before the 2024 elections, as well as for other civil rights cases. Bolts and NC Policy Watch reported two weeks ago on a pending case that will decide whether people on probation and parole in the state can vote.

Ohio Republicans swept all three supreme court seats that were on the ballot. All were technically already in GOP hands, and the party maintains its 4-3 edge. But the departure of Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who hit the mandatory retirement age, will significantly alter the court’s dynamics as she has repeatedly sided with Democratic justices in redistricting cases.

Elsewhere on state supreme courts, things went as expected. Republicans prevailed in red Alabama and Texas; all justices were retained in Florida and Kansas, where abortion rights may have been at play; and in seven states judicial candidates ran unopposed. Bolts previewed all of the cycle’s supreme court elections earlier this year.

In sheriff races, voters oust the “Trump of LA” and the “Arpaio of the “East”

Massachusetts reformers were jubilant following the defeat of Thomas Hodgson, a far-right sheriff whose 25-year reign in Bristol County has been marked by extreme medical neglect, mounting jail suicides, and staunchly anti-immigrant policies. 

“Today is a great day!” Kellie Pearson, the former partner of Michael Ray, who committed suicide in a Bristol County jail, told Bolts on Wednesday. “People are becoming more educated about the state of our jails and they are ready for a change.” A Massachusetts watchdog dubbed Hodgson the “Arpaio of the East” in September.

On the other side of the country, Angelenos fired Sheriff Alex Villanueva, whose office faces a mountain of allegations of abuse and retaliation—enough to fill a book, Bolts reported in May. Villanueva, the “Trump of LA” and a determined foe of the county’s reform DA George Gascón, conceded on Tuesday while trailing challenger Robert Luna 60 to 40 percent. Still, many local progressives are pressing for independent oversight rather than rely on internal change given the dark history of the department.

But change was not on the horizon in other counties led by sheriffs who have courted investigations. In Columbus County, North Carolina, a sheriff who reportedly unleashed racist tirades and resigned last month to avoid judicial removal won a new term. In Klickitat County, Washington, a far-right sheriff who has threatened to arrest state officials appears to have survived by about one percentage point; but a candidate with a similar outlook in the state’s Clark County appears to have narrowly lost. In Frederick County, Maryland, a longtime sheriff who is similarly embedded in far-right networks leads by 6 percentage points as of publication, with some ballots remaining.

Immigration hardliners lose critical sheriff elections

Immigrants’ rights advocates cheered landmark wins last week in counties that have a history of closely working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify and detain immigrants. 

Barnstable County, home to Cape Cod, stood out as the only county in New England to contract into ICE’s 287(g) program, which enables sheriff’s deputies to act like federal immigration agents. But voters elected a new sheriff who promises to “rip up” the county’s contract. In neighboring Bristol County, voters ousted Thomas Hodgson, a  sheriff with a history of draconian anti-immigrant policies. (See above.)

In Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina, longtime sheriff Donnie Harrison failed in his comeback effort and lost to Democrat Willie Rowe. While in office, he joined the 287(g) program and frequently demonized immigrants but abruptly changed his stance on collaborating with ICE when asked by Bolts in August. Advocates took his flip as a sign that protecting immigrants remains a potent issue. In Doña Ana County, New Mexico, a border county that is home to Las Cruces, Democratic Sheriff Kim Stewart easily prevailed over a Republican challenger who was advocating for a tighter relationship with federal agents. 

Voters also approved a ballot measure in Arizona to provide in-state tuition to students regardless of their legal status, and in Massachusetts to enable undocumented immigrants to access drivers’ licenses.

Still, several of the nation’s notorious anti-immigrant sheriffs likely survived in more rural areas, including in Alamance County, North Carolina, and in Frederick County, Maryland.

Read more in Bolts on the results in sheriff’s races that matter to immigration.

And also don’t miss…

Alabama and Ohio each adopted ballot measures pertaining to bail that could expand pretrial detention. Alabama also voted to introduce new restrictions on their governor’s ability to grant reprieve for a death sentence.

Wisconsin re-elected its Democratic attorney general over a GOP challenger who threatened to ramp up prosecutions over elections.

Montana voted to require police to obtain search warrants before searching electronic data.

Dallas Republicans lost their last seat on the county’s commissioner court, in a proxy battle over whether to pursue criminal justice reforms.

Four states voted to remove the so-called slavery loophole from their constitutions, which permitted forced and unpaid labor as punishment for crimes; advocates have hoped this may help their legal fight against forced prison labor. 

South Dakota expanded their Medicaid program, after a decade of GOP politicians refusing to expand the program as provided by Obamacare. In June, state voters rejected a separate measure that the GOP rushed onto the ballot that would have increased this measure needed.

In Los Angeles, voters appear to have approved ballot measures that will strengthen affordable housing.

And New York State approved a $4.2 billion bond to fund green infrastructure. 

The article was updated on Nov. 15 with the outcomes of elections in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The post Nine Midterm Stories You Should Not Miss on Criminal Justice and Voting Rights appeared first on Bolts.

The presidential race and control of the U.S. Senate is still in limbo at this moment, grabbing much of our collective attention. But when it comes to elections relevant to mass incarceration and criminal justice, Tuesday’s elections have already delivered major verdicts that will upend drug policy, immigration enforcement, and prosecutorial norms in significant chunks of the nation. 

Here’s what we know so far.

You can explore all of our coverage of these 2020 battlegrounds for criminal justice with our interactive tool.

A banner election against the war on drugs

Oregon voters approved a groundbreaking initiative to decriminalize drugs. This is something that no other state has done, and it could reset conversations around drug reform nationally. 

Inspired by policies implemented in Portugal, Oregon’s Measure 110 makes low-level drug possession a civil offense, punishable by a fine, rather than jail time. Zachary Siegel wrote for The Appeal: Political Report that the result marks “a momentous shift in favor of a public health-focused approach to substance use, and a turn away from longtime policies that incarcerate people.” Advocates warn more work is needed to reduce law enforcement and inequalities, and vow to press further around the country.

The movement to legalize marijuana made sweeping gains on Election Day as well, with four states passing referendums to allow recreational cannabis. 

These measures passed by double-digit margins in Arizona, Montana, and New Jersey, and by a smaller margin South Dakota. As a result, there are now 15 states, in addition to Washington, D.C., where marijuana is legal. 

But when it comes to making amends for racial injustice, Kaila Philo laid out in the Political Report, this year’s marijuana legalization measures vary. 

There’s more: Oregonians supported a measure to legalize psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic purposes, while Washington, D.C., mostly decriminalized psilocybin. And Mississippi legalized medical marijuana; its initiative succeeded despite lawmakers’ attempts to derail it by adding a stricter alternative measure to the ballot. 

Candidates for prosecutor also won elections on promises to implement far less punitive policies toward drugs. 

José Garza, who won the DA election in Travis County (Austin), Texas, vowed to overturn the county’s approach to substance use. “Using our resources to prosecute these offenses increases the likelihood that people will commit future crimes, and that makes our community less safe,” he told the Political Report in June. He has gone a step further than other progressives who have recently run for DA, extending their commitment to not prosecute drug possession to sales as well. Meanwhile, in Jefferson County, Colorado, Alexis King, a Democrat who flipped the DA’s office from the GOP on Tuesday, favors not prosecuting drug possession. “The criminal justice system has become the catchment basin for public health issues,” she told the Political Report. 

Mixed reforms on referendums that address mass incarceration and police accountability

In California, voters contended with a slew of other referendums concerning the criminal legal system. They rejected Proposition 20, a measure that would have rolled back past sentencing reforms and ramped up incarceration by reclassifying certain misdemeanors as felonies. 

They also turned down Proposition 25, a measure that divided criminal justice reform advocates on the issue of cash bail. Prop 25 would have upheld a 2018 law that eliminated the cash bail system and replaced it with algorithm-driven risk assessments. The bail bond industry opposed the measure, and in an unusual twist, so did many advocates. They warned that the new system would perpetuate racial disparities in pretrial detention, as Lauren Lee White reported. Some who shared this concern supported the measure anyway, calling it a step toward better reforms. 

Elsewhere, too, referendum results brought a mix of strides and setbacks on issues that can affect mass incarceration. 

Nevada passed Question 3, a measure that will make the parole process a bit easier. It changes the rules of the state’s Board of Pardons Commissioners by ending the mandate that the governor approve a pardon supported by a majority of the board, and addressing a backlog of requests. 

Oklahoma rejected Question 805, which would have prevented prosecutors who have charged someone with a nonviolent offense from seeking a harsher sentence based on the defendant’s prior nonviolent convictions. The measure was trying to build on other recent successful initiatives that have helped reduce the state’s record prison population. The measure’s failure will deny relief to Oklahomans who are serving staggeringly long sentences via such enhancements. 

In Kentucky, voters approved Marsy’s Law, a “victim’s rights” measure that 10 states have adopted despite criticism from the ACLU and others that it undermines due process. This could turn out to be a repeat of 2018, when Kentucky voters passed another version of Marsy’s Law but it was overturned by the state Supreme Court.

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the ensuing protests pushed many city councils to put measures related to policing on the ballot. Bloomberg reports that in cities nationwide, from Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio, to San Diego, voters approved plans to create police oversight boards, expand the powers of existing oversight bodies, divest from law enforcement, and impose requirements such as body cameras.

In Los Angeles, voters approved Measure J, a county-level ballot initiative that will “ redirect 10 percent of unrestricted county funds toward community investment,” as Piper French reported.

And in San Francisco voters approved Proposition E, overturning a law that required the city to maintain a minimum number of full-time police officers. 

California joins the wave of pushback against felony disenfranchisement 

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of citizens were newly able to vote this fall thanks to a wave of recent state reforms that have expanded the voting rights of people with felony convictions.

Throughout 2020, The Appeal talked to people impacted by these reforms who were looking to register to vote, or who helped bring them about.

California just added to this wave. Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 17, a ballot initiative that restores the right to vote to anyone who is not presently incarcerated.

“This is a victory for democracy and justice,” Taina Vargas-Edmond, executive chair of the Yes On Prop 17 campaign and co-founder and executive director of Initiate Justice, an organization that has championed ending felony disenfranchisement, told the Political Report. “For far too long, Black and brown Californians have been excluded from our democracy.” 

California becomes the 19th state, alongside Washington D.C., to enfranchise all adult citizens who are not in prison. 

Read more from Kira Lerner and Daniel Nichanian about this ballot measure, and what’s next in the fight against felony disenfranchisement in California.

Progressives score major wins in DA and sheriff races—but suffer some setbacks as well

In recent years, elections for prosecutor and sheriff have upended criminal legal systems around the country. Fueled by local organizing, this shift has brought into power public defenders, civil rights attorneys, and other candidates who are running on reducing incarceration. 

This fall was no exception. 

Importantly, the full scale of the results is not yet available as of publication due to outstanding ballots in counties with some of the year’s most important prosecutorial races. But here’s what we know so far.

Progressives who vowed to fight mass incarceration win key prosecutorial races

In Austin and Orlando, José Garza and Monique Worrell each vowed during their campaigns to advance reforms and reduce the prison population. And on Tuesday, they each secured decisive victories against candidates who attacked them over these positions.

Garza, a former public defender who works as a labor and immigrants’ rights attorney, won in Travis County (Austin), Texas, four months after beating the incumbent DA in a heated Democratic primary. In the backdrop of Garza’s win is the intense organizing for decarceration and immigrants’ rights by Austin advocates who are vowing to keep him accountable. 

Garza’s own organizing background extends the streak of candidates like Larry Krasner who are upending long-held expectations of who can win a prosecutorial election, and on what platform. 

Worrell, a former defense attorney, prevailed in Florida’s Ninth Judicial District, home to Orange (Orlando) and Osceola counties, against Jose Torroella, an independent. She will replace Aramis Ayala, the prosecutor who did not seek re-election after clashing with state Republicans but who endorsed Worrell.

“Garza and Worrell were elected because their messaging around public health, public safety and the fact that we cannot prosecute and incarcerate our way out of society’s problems resonated with voters,” Tiffany Cabán, who lost the DA race in Queens in 2019 and has since worked with the Working Families Party to help progressives, told the Political Report in an email. 

Garza and Worrell will be joined by other progressive candidates who ran on similar platforms. 

In Oakland County, Michigan, Karen McDonald, a Democrat, prevailed on Tuesday over a former Republican prosecutor who defended punitive practices, 3 months after ousting a carceral incumbent in the Democratic primary. During the campaign, McDonald pledged to cut incarceration, not seek cash bail, and not invoke prior convictions as a way to increase sentences. In Colorado, Democrats Alexis King and Gordon McLaughlin won two DA races in populous suburban jurisdictions that include Jefferson and Larimer counties; they will flip these offices from GOP control. Their races featured clear contrasts on the role that a prosecutor should play in targeting the size of the jail population, and in the criminalization of lower-level offenses, as the Political Report laid out in September.

Elsewhere, reform candidates who won heated primaries this year were running unopposed in the general elections. Nov. 3 formalized their victories. In Arizona’s Pima County (Tucson), former public defender Laura Conover will replace a prosecutor who implemented punitive practices. In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, Alonzo Payne ousted a sitting DA in a primary and he emphasizes that fighting poverty is indispensable to ending mass incarceration. In New York’s Westchester County, Mimi Rocah won a primary against the backdrop of explosive reporting that the incumbent was relying on police officers who were framing defendants. And in Michigan’s Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), Eli Savit ran on never requesting cash bail, amid other decarceral commitments. 

“This is a movement,” Savit told the Political Report after his win. He cheered the collapse of the expectation that “the only way” to win these county elections “was to be tough on crime.” 

But reform-minded challengers fell short in some key general elections around the country as incumbent prosecutors in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio, Charleston and Berkeley counties in South Carolina, DeKalb County, Illinois, and Shawnee County (Topeka), Kansas, prevailed.

Ohio and Georgia, though, saw the defeats of a pair of prosecutors whose decisions have raised major concerns about racial justice. In Franklin County (Columbus), voters ousted Ron O’Brien, who is known for aggressively pursuing the death penalty and flouting police accountability. In Georgia’s Brunswick Judicial Circuit, Jackie Johnson, who came under national fire over her handling of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, lost; local officials had accused Johnson of advising police not to arrest the white men who shot the young Black jogger, and of taking further steps to undermine the investigation. 

Voters oust a series of punitive, pro-ICE sheriffs

Tuesday saw historic wins for immigrants’ rights advocates who have decried and organized against sheriffs’ punitive and anti-immigrant practices in populous Southern counties.

Longtime Republican sheriffs Neil Warren and Al Cannon lost in Cobb County, Georgia, and Charleston County, South Carolina. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, a sheriff’s office with notoriously aggressive policies toward immigrants also flipped to a Democratic candidate.

Each of these counties is part of ICE’s 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act like federal immigration agents within county jails. Membership in these counties falls under the sheriffs’ discretion.

The incoming Democrats—Kristin Graziano in Charleston, Keybo Taylor in Gwinnett, and Craig Owens in Cobb—have all vowed to terminate the 287(g) contract and severely restrict cooperation with ICE, which would be a major blow to the federal agency. (See also: Timothy Pratt wrote on what has driven these shifts in Georgia.)

Also central to these campaigns were the allegations that the Cobb County and Gwinnett County jails were denying people adequate care. Just in October, a judge ruled that Warren was illegally refusing to disclose information about two deaths in the Cobb County jail.

These same themes also resonated in a third Georgia county, Athens-Clarke, which also elected a candidate who ran on breaking the incumbent’s cooperation with ICE. But for John Williams, the hard work came in the June, when he beat Sheriff Ira Edwards in this staunchly blue jurisdiction’s Democratic primary; he easily prevailed in the general election on Tuesday. Besides vowing to reject ICE’s requests that he detain people, Williams ran as a supporter of bail reform and during the primary pledged to not accept donations from the bail bond industry.

Elsewhere in the country, reform-minded candidates scored victories in at least two other important sheriffs races.

In Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Patrick McDermott, a Democrat, ousted the Republican incumbent who had championed a ballot initiative to enable closer cooperation with ICE and  who spoke up against a police reform proposal. 

And Charmaine McGuffey will be the next sheriff in Hamilton County, Ohio. McGuffey prevailed over Sheriff Jim Neil, a Democrat who has attended a Trump rally, cooperated with ICE, and backed the construction of a bigger jail, in an April primary. On Tuesday, she beat a Republican who said he wanted to ramp up enforcement of low-level offenses. McGuffey, by contrast, has signaled her support for reducing the incarcerated population, and she has vowed to no longer assist ICE in detaining people.

“The solution to the problem of mass incarceration is certainly not more mass incarceration,” McGuffey explained to the Political Report in April about her opposition to building a larger jail.

On the other hand, three GOP sheriffs who positioned themselves as allies of President Trump won re-election in key races that the Political Report was watching. 

In Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Texas, Republican Sheriff Bill Waybourn has overseen a jail mired by gruesome deaths and contracted with ICE; on Tuesday, he prevailed over Democratic challenger Vance Keyes, who ran on reducing the jail population and ending the partnership with ICE. In Oakland County, Michigan, Sheriff Mike Bouchard, a prominent Republican politician in the state who has honored ICE requests that he detain immigrants, prevailed. In Pinellas County (St. Petersburg), Sheriff Bob Gualtieri prevailed over Elio Santana, his Democratic challenger, even as Joe Biden carried the county handily. The sheriff’s conservative politics—he has helped ICE gain a deeper foothold in the state, advocated for arming teachers, and been a staunch proponent of the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law—have made him a national figure. 

Reform-minded incumbents prevail

Some prosecutors and sheriffs who have advanced criminal justice reforms, and faced attacks over it in the general election, won their re-election bids.

In Harris County (Houston), Democratic Sheriff Ed Gonzalez beat a Republican challenger who denounced the county’s bail reform, which Gonzalez supported. Farther south, in Nueces County (Corpus Christi), Democratic DA Mark Gonzalez prevailed over a Republican rival who signaled he would be harsher toward low-level offenses like drug arrests. In Florida’s Hillsborough County, State Attorney Andrew Warren prevailed over a Republican who criticized sentencing for not being harsh enough. 

Kim Foxx and Kim Gardner won second terms as the chief prosecutors of Cook County (Chicago) and St. Louis, as expected in these heavily blue jurisdictions. Both won tough Democratic primaries to get here.

We don’t know everything yet

In many other DA races, the results are not yet conclusive at this time. In Colorado’s most populous judicial district, a reform-minded Democrat, Amy Padden, leads by narrow margin as of the most recent count. In Maricopa County, Arizona, the election remains too close between Republican incumbent Allister Adel and Democratic challenger Julie Gunnigle.

And in Los Angeles County, the year’s biggest prize, some local media outlets have indicated that the progressive challenger George Gascón is likely to oust DA Jackie Lacey, but final results are not yet available. The same is true in the Maricopa County sheriff’s race, where Joe Arpaio’s former deputy is trailing in available returns. 

Of note: Two important elections are going to runoffs. In New Orleans, where local activists have focused on the DA race as an opening for change, the DA race will be decided in December. In Athens, Georgia, reformer Deborah Gonzalez, a Democrat, faces a runoff against independent James Chafin in a race that almost did not happen; the acting DA was eliminated.

The movement extends to many other local offices, besides prosecutors and sheriffs

DA and sheriff candidates—a longtime focus of the Political Report—were, of course, not the only ones who ran on criminal justice reform. The Appeal reported on the congressional and legislative victories of Athena Hollins and Esther Agbaje in Minnesota, Cori Bush in Missouri, Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman in New York. It also reported on Holly Mitchell’s win for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In Washington State, Tarra Simmons became the first person with a felony conviction to be elected to the state legislature.

And a striking pattern across the country is the growing number of even more local offices that are becoming hotspots for conflicts around criminal justice, fueled by the grassroots organizing against the many forms that mass incarceration takes.

In Vermont, proponents of criminal justice reform are reimagining the function of the unusual office of high bailiff to make the case for civilian oversight on law enforcement. Bobby Sand in Windsor County and David Silberman in Addison County (Middlebury) won on Tuesday with a stated goal of harnessing the office’s platform for progressive change.

Some school board elections became a fulcrum on issues of policing and racial disparities that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline. In Prince George’s County Maryland, the local school board deadlocked over a proposal to remove police from schools in the wake of the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, and the issue burst into the fall’s elections, as Rachel Cohen reported in October. The candidates who ran on ending police presence in schools appear to have swept the five seats in play, though the results are not yet definitive. “I believe that we need to end the school-to-prison pipeline and that includes removing armed officers from schools,” said one of the candidates who is in the lead.

In New Orleans, a concerted effort to “flip the bench” delivered wins for two public defenders running to become criminal court judges. Angel Harris and Nandi Campbell were part of a slate of seven current and former public defenders vying for local judicial offices on platforms that included ending cash bail and seeking alternatives to incarceration. Though the majority lost, their candidacies—and these two victories—buck the norm of former prosecutors overwhelmingly filling judicial seats.

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