Chronicle Editorial Board: Spinning for Progressives

The Chronicle is feeling what he's feeling.

We're used to reading editorials where writers cherry-pick facts, misrepresent the positions of opponents, and warn of apocalypse if their advice isn't followed.

But at least major newspapers don't make up facts that are foundational to an argument, or so we thought until we read the Chronicle's take on Chesa Boudin's recall (yesterday's post below). [bold added]

Editorial: No, California didn’t just send a message on crime — only voter apathy

Voter turnout was barely at 26% in San Francisco the morning after the election. It was even worse across most of the state. Sure, ballots will continue trickling in for days. But the story will stay the same.

Voters weren’t “desperate for change,” as one Los Angeles Times website headline put it. They couldn’t be bothered...

But it was apathy and resignation, not overt anger or a definitive vision, that ruled the day in San Francisco and across California in Tuesday’s election.

But is the Chronicle correct about voter apathy being high?

In an election-analysis article, the same newspaper says that the turnout to recall Chesa Boudin was higher than in 2019, when he was elected.

Unlike Tuesday’s election, which ended up being largely about a single candidate, the 2019 election asked voters to cast their ballots for the mayor, D.A., city attorney, public defender, sheriff and several other races in the year before a presidential election...the Department of Elections is now anticipating turnout among registered voters to hit 46% — higher than the 42% rate seen in the 2019 election, and a lot higher than the 36% rate for the February school board recall.

As of this writing 123,926 votes have been counted, and 74,335 (59.98%) of them were to oust Chesa Boudin.

When all the mail-in votes are finally tabulated, the total is expected to be above 200,000.

The same chart for 2019 shows that Chesa Boudin was elected because he received 68,575 votes (35.71%) out of 192,053, the leader out of four candidates through "ranked choice" voting.

With only 57% of the 2022 ballots counted, there are already more "no" votes against Chesa Boudin than voted for him in 2019.

Sounds like the San Francisco electorate is getting less apathetic, but we're not professional interpreters of facts like the Chronicle editorial board.