The incumbent district attorney, George Gascón, announced in October 2018 that he would not seek a third term.[1] Gascón then abruptly resigned in October 2019, and Breed appointed Suzy Loftus to replace him on an interim basis.[2][3]
Four candidates, Chesa Boudin, Suzy Loftus, Nancy Tung, and Leif Dautch, ran in the nonpartisan election,[4][5] with Boudin and Loftus seen as the front-runners.[6] San Francisco elections are conducted using ranked-choice voting: voters are permitted to rank the candidates in order of preference, and should no candidate garner a majority of first-choice votes, the support of the candidates with the fewest votes are successively re-allocated until one candidate attains a majority.[7]
The winner of the election was unclear for several days;[8] Loftus conceded the race to Boudin on November 9.[9] The final results showed Boudin defeating Loftus by 4.6 percentage points in first-choice votes, and by 1.7 percentage points in the final round.[10]
On October 2, 2018, after Suzy Loftus announced her candidacy for the office, Gascón announced that he would not seek re-election. On October 19, 2019, in the midst of the campaign, Gascón abruptly resigned as district attorney;[1] he said he was considering running for district attorney of Los Angeles in 2020.[1][3] Mayor London Breed then appointed Loftus to replace Gascón.[2][3] The appointment was criticized by Loftus's election opponents, who charged that Breed was conferring the advantage of incumbency on her preferred candidate less than three weeks before the election;[2][3] until the appointment of Loftus, the election had been slated to be the first open race for district attorney in over a century.[2][3] However, some contend that the appointment hurt Loftus's chances in the election, as voters felt that the decision had seemingly been taken away from them.[12]
Loftus conceded to Boudin on November 9.[17][18] Since Boudin was seen as by far the most progressive candidate in the race, the result was interpreted as a continuation of a national trend of bold criminal justice reformists elected in large cities, including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia; Rachael Rollins in Boston; and Kim Foxx in Chicago.[12][13]
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