2022 San Francisco District Attorney recall election

The recall election will be held within months of two other high-profile recall elections in California: an unsuccessful recall of governor Gavin Newsom in September 2021, and a successful recall of three members of the San Francisco Board of Education in February 2022.[4] In addition, a recall effort against Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón is currently ongoing. Boudin's election in 2019 and Gascón's victory over incumbent Jackie Lacey in 2020 were considered "landmark moments in the nationwide 'progressive prosecutor' movement".[5]

In the summer of 2021, there were two separate campaigns that sought to gather the necessary signatures in order to force a recall election against Boudin. The first campaign was spearheaded by former mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg, a member of the Republican Party, but narrowly fell short of the 51,325 signatures needed before the August 11 deadline.[6] The second campaign was led by Mary Jung and Andrea Shorter and had a deadline of October 25 to collect the same number of signatures.[7] Jung is a former chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.[8] The second campaign submitted 83,484 signatures to the Board of Elections, which announced on November 9 that via a review of a representative 5% sample of signatures they determined that the number of valid signatures exceeded the required 51,325 and thus that a recall election would take place on June 7, 2022.[1]

Boudin has repeatedly dismissed the recall attempt as a Republican-led effort.[4][9][10] The largest contributor to this recall effort and the 2022 recall of three school board members is Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a political action committee based in San Rafael. The largest donor of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco in support of the recall effort is hedge fund manager William Oberndorf, a frequent donor to the Republican Party.[11]

Despite Boudin's claims, the recall campaign is led by Democratic Party activists and members, including local Democratic leaders Mary Jung and Andrea Shorter. 83% of donations to the campaign are from Democratic-registered voters or no-party-preference voters, and over 80% of donations coming from local San Franciscans.[12] A February 2022 poll commissioned by the recall campaign indicated that two-thirds of Democrats are in favor of the recall.[13] Meanwhile, on February 24, 2022, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee voted by a margin of 20–2 to oppose the recall effort.[14] The two committeemembers supporting the recall were Suzy Loftus and Nancy Tung; both were candidates in the 2019 district attorney election won by Boudin.[14]

• 2022 San Francisco Board of Education recall elections

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