Interim DA, deputy public defender in tight race to be San Francisco’s top prosecutor

Recently-appointed San Francisco District Attorney Suzanne T. “Suzy” Loftus was holding onto a 240-vote lead over Deputy Public Defender Chesa Boudin Wednesday afternoon with thousands of ballots to be counted in a tight race to be the county’s top prosecutor.

The campaign featured a challenge from the left by Boudin countered by a late round of negative political advertising financed by the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

Loftus, a former prosecutor and president of the San Francisco Police Commission, was appointed interim district attorney by San Francisco Mayor London Breed after the early October resignation of former District Attorney George Gascon. He is running to be Los Angeles County’s district attorney.

Boudin, whose parents were members of the Weather Underground terrorist group and whose father is still in prison for his role in a bank robbery that left three men dead, is running on a progressive platform that has drawn strong support in the liberal city while horrifying some veteran prosecutors.

Alameda County prosecutor Nancy Tung, who formerly worked in the San Francisco district attorney’s office, and state Deputy Attorney General Leif M. Dautch finished behind the two frontrunners. Voters who preferred them might decide the race under San Francisco’s ranked voting system. Voters’ second-choice ballots allowed Loftus to move ahead of Boudin during the initial vote count.

It might take days for the Department of Elections to tabulate provisional ballots and those dropped off at the polls or mailed on Election Day. Boudin estimated in an email there are as many as 70,000 ballots outstanding.

It took a week for the elections department to determine Breed won the mayor’s race last year.