California, Iowa, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and other states hold primaries

Rising concerns about crime and homelessness burst to the forefront Tuesday as San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive who had ended cash bail and sought to reduce the number of people sent to prison.

In the Los Angeles mayor’s race, where public safety concerns have also taken center stage, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, a former Republican who vowed a tough-on-crime approach, is headed to a runoff against California Rep. Karen Bass.

Meanwhile, in House primaries across the country, Republicans largely opted to keep their incumbents, rejecting challenges from candidates who attempted to align themselves more closely with former President Donald Trump.

The largest state to vote Tuesday was California. But final results in many close races there won’t be known for days or weeks, because mail-in ballots — the way most votes are cast in the state — postmarked by Election Day will be counted as long as they arrive by the end of the week, and voters whose ballots encounter signature matching problems are given time to “cure” those problems.

Here are key takeaways from the day’s races:

Boudin’s loss is a mark against the progressive prosecutor movement: The recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin may not have sweeping national implications —local issues and sentiments among voters differ from city to city — but the loss is a clear mark against the progressive prosecutor movement that Boudin’s 2019 win helped propel.

And it could serve as a warning to national Democrats that the way voters in liberal bastions feel about their cities — especially the rise of homelessness — is far more instructive to how they will vote than actual crime rates and data.

Boudin’s win three years ago, on the back of concerns over police misconduct, criminal justice reform and mass incarceration, signaled a high point for the movement to elect more progressive prosecutors to top jobs. But his tenure was defined by the coronavirus pandemic and an overwhelming sense among San Francisco residents that crime, especially property crime, was both not a priority for the district attorney and out of control.

Voters on Tuesday leveled swift judgment of Boudin, signaling that his laxer approach to certain kinds of crime was unacceptable.

Still, the loss is far from the end to liberal cities electing progressive prosecutors. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner won reelection and Alvin Bragg, a former New York state and federal prosecutor, became Manhattan district attorney in 2021 – both wins for the progressive prosecutor movement.

Republican incumbents mostly survive challenges from right: House Republicans who had faced primaries from the right — largely from challengers who alleged the incumbents weren’t supportive enough of Trump — either won or were positioned to survive Tuesday’s contests.

South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson fended off a challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, who had criticized his vote to certify the 2020 election and had embraced Trump’s lies about voter fraud. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a moderate Republican who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, held off a group of challengers that included conservative talk radio host Mike Crispi, who was backed by Trump allies including Roger Stone and Rudy Giuliani.

In California’s open primaries, in which the top two finishers regardless of party move on to November’s general election, Reps. David Valadao and Young Kim — two Republicans who have won tough races — were both in position to advance after challenges from Trump loyalists, though there are still more votes to count.

One race to watch is a House primary in Montana. Ryan Zinke, a former congressman who resigned for a scandal-plagued tenure as Trump’s interior secretary and faced questions about his residency, narrowly led former state Sen. Al Olszewski as ballots were being counted early Wednesday morning.

Los Angeles mayoral race advances to runoff: The race to be Los Angeles’ next mayor won’t be decided until November, with neither businessman Rick Caruso nor Rep. Karen Bass able to win more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday night.

Caruso and Bass both ran on the need to tackle homelessness and crime, but they approached the issues with markedly different solutions and styles, distinctions that will likely define their campaigns through November.

Caruso, a real estate developer who has worked for years to accrue private power in Los Angeles, argued the city was in “a state of emergency,” citing “rampant homelessness” and “people living in fear for their safety.” Caruso promised to increase the size of the Los Angeles Police Department, running against the “defund the police” effort.

Bass, a longtime congresswoman and former member of the California State Assembly, ran more as a progressive, highlighting her ties to the city and her years of service representing it.

But Caruso’s strong showing on Tuesday will provide a warning to more traditional Democrats running on their records, especially if the bulk of that time was spent in Congress, a body currently held in low regard by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Keep reading takeaways below:

A voter fills out his ballot in a polling station at San Francisco City Hall on June 7, 2022 in San Francisco. California.

Related article 6 takeaways from Tuesday's primaries

Rick Caruso and Karen Bass will face off in a runoff election to be Los Angeles' next mayor.

Democratic Rep. Karen Bass and real estate developer Rick Caruso will advance to a November election in the Los Angeles mayoral race, CNN projects, in a contest that has been shaped by issues of crime and homelessness.

Either candidate could have avoided the runoff by winning a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s nonpartisan race to succeed term-limited Mayor Eric Garcetti. But since no one took a majority, Bass and Caruso, the top two finishers, will face off in the fall.

If elected, Bass would be the first woman and the first Black woman to lead America’s second-largest city.

Bass served in the California State Assembly prior to her time in Congress. In 2008, she made history as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature, according to her congressional biography.

The six-term congresswoman currently represents California’s 37th District. She has championed efforts to shape public policy in areas like child welfare, foster care and prison reform. She chaired the Congressional Black Caucus for two years and helped to lead policing overhaul efforts after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020.

The longtime lawmaker was one of several contenders on President Biden’s running mate short list during the 2020 campaign. Though Biden ultimately selected Kamala Harris as his vice president, his consideration of Bass threw her name into the national spotlight. Bass earned the endorsement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another California Democrat, in the mayoral race.

In her campaign for mayor, Bass has forged a coalition of White progressives and Black voters and has sought to expand on that by engaging Latino voters and other groups across Los Angeles. She’s emphasized the depth of her policy experience and her reputation as collaborative listener and legislator.

She’s highlighted her early work as a physician assistant in the emergency room and her experience bringing together Black and Latino community organizers in South LA in the early 1990s to address the root causes of crime and the crack epidemic through the nonprofit she founded, Community Coalition. She has also pointed to her role as a dealmaker when she led the California State Assembly after the 2008 financial crisis – making budget decisions that earned her a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2010.

Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat and shopping mall magnate, has built a platform promising to deal with the city’s rise in crime and its staggering homelessness crisis.

He is also a former city police commissioner and the former head of the USC Board of Trustees. He’s long eyed the mayor’s race, all while donating generously to both Republicans and Democrats. But he is best known for the meticulously groomed, open-air malls that he has built in Los Angeles that are awash in 1950s Americana, with splashing fountains, trolley cars, valet parking and a seemingly unending loop of Frank Sinatra.

Caruso, who campaigned on his outsider status and has spent more than $40 million in the race, had been accused by Bass and other rivals of trying to “buy” the office.

“I don’t care how much money you spend, it’s the power of the people that wins,” Bass said through a megaphone during one of her campaign stops Tuesday evening.

Republican Connie Conway will win a special general election for California’s 22nd Congressional District, CNN projects. She will serve out the remaining term of former GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, who resigned in January to head the Trump Media & Technology Group.

Conway, a former GOP leader of the California State Assembly, was facing off against Democrat Lourin Hubbard, who works for California’s Department of Water Resources.

The two candidates competed in a six-way primary in April to fill the vacant seat in a district covering portions of Fresno and Tulare counties, from Clovis to areas south of Visalia. Conway led in the vote count in April, but no candidate received more than 50% of the vote to win the seat outright.

The 22nd Congressional District was dismantled by the state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission. Most of the district will now be split between the new 20th and 21st districts. Conway will serve in office through January, when the district will cease to exist after the new Congress is sworn in.

CNN’s Maeve Reston contributed reporting to this post.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin speaks to supporters at an election-night event on Tuesday.

The successful recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Tuesday has already led some pundits to declare the demise of the “progressive prosecutor.”

But a look around the country — and closer probe of San Francisco’s particular issues — tells a more complicated story.

What’s clear is that Boudin was soundly rejected by his constituents. What’s less certain, or simple to explain, is why. Boudin had powerful, moneyed opponents aligned against him, for sure, but progressive candidates have overcome those hurdles in a series of races this primary season. More problematic for Boudin, though, was his poor standing with voters in San Francisco, who recently recalled three school board members, and a general discontent, not unlike what we’ve seen in other typically liberal cities, with overlapping issues of crime, homelessness and the cost of living.

Boudin didn’t do himself too many favors in trying to assuage some very real concerns with his performance in office, but an early scan of the incoming results shows a divide between younger voters and older, wealthier ones.

Looking outside the city, and around the country, the prospects for fellow progressive-prosecutor types still look promising.

As recently as last fall, Alvin Bragg won the district attorney race in Manhattan — in the same cycle that saw New Yorkers elect Eric Adams as mayor. In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner easily won reelection despite an ultimately overblown backlash to his policies. And in the Chicago area, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx won a second term in 2020.

Boudin’s ouster is certainly a blow to the movement he, at least for the moment, has come to represent. But the implications for the future are more difficult to nail down — especially if the headline issues that fueled the discontent around him don’t end along with his time in office.

Rick Caruso and Rep. Karen Bass are running for mayor in Los Angeles.

Six-term US Rep. Karen Bass was once viewed as the front-runner in the Los Angeles mayoral contest, but she has faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from billionaire shopping mall magnate Rick Caruso, a former Republican.

CNN is yet to make a projection in the contest, but Bass and Caruso are leading the 12-candidate field.

The two mayoral hopefuls headed into Tuesday’s primary as the likely top-two vote getters, who would advance to the November ballot if no candidate won a majority of the vote outright.

If elected, Bass would be the first woman and the first Black woman to lead America’s second-largest city. Once a teen activist, Bass served in the California State Assembly prior to her time in Congress. In 2008, she made history as the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislature, according to her congressional biography.

The congresswoman currently represents California’s 37th District. She has championed efforts to shape public policy in areas such as child welfare, foster care and prison reform. She chaired the Congressional Black Caucus for two years and helped to lead policing overhaul efforts after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020.

Spending more than $40 million in the race, Caruso has argued that city leaders have failed to keep voters safe and protect their quality of life. Tents have proliferated across Los Angeles, taking over parks, sidewalks and public spaces as the city has struggled to house some 41,000 people who need shelter.

While Bass says she would return the Los Angeles Police Department to its authorized force of 9,700 officers — in part by hiring more civilians to free up 250 officers to return to street patrol — Caruso has promised to hire 1,500 additional officers and to bring on some 500 sanitation workers to clean up the streets.

US Rep. Katie Porter will face Scott Baugh in November's election. 

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who has earned national attention for her forceful interrogations of corporate and oil executives in congressional hearings, will face Republican Scott Baugh in the general election for California’s new 47th District, CNN projects.

While the district leans Democratic, this year’s unpredictable political climate has made Porter a GOP target.

Baugh, the former GOP leader of the California State Assembly and a former chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, has highlighted the toll of rising crime and higher gas and grocery prices in his campaign. He has the backing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and was named to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program for promising recruits.

US Rep. Young Kim hosts a task force on human trafficking at her Orange County office in Placentia, California, in March.

California Rep. Young Kim was heralded as a face of the new GOP when she made history in 2020 as one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress.

Kim narrowly unseated Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros in a Southern California district in 2020, two years after losing to him in her first attempt. It initially looked like Kim would have an easier race this year when she decided to run in the redrawn 40th District, which is far more favorable to the GOP. But Kim is new to many voters in the new district – which encompasses parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties – and she had to contend with a challenge from the right Tuesday in the “top-two” primary. 

Kim, who was born in South Korea but grew up in Guam, settled in Los Angeles after earning an MBA. She previously told CNN she gravitated toward the Republican Party while studying accounting at the University of Southern California in 1984 during the Reagan administration, when his tax cuts were moving through Congress.

In 1990, Kim got a job with then-California state Sen. Ed Royce and stayed with him when he was elected to Congress. It also served as a training ground – she now holds Royce’s congressional seat.

“Being able to work with him for about 21 years in Congress, I always thought, ‘OK, at least I know a little bit about how Congress works. Maybe I can get myself here,’” she said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the first name of former Rep. Gil Cisneros.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin ponders a reporter's question last month.

San Francisco voters have recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, CNN projects.

Boudin was narrowly swept into office in 2019, amid voters’ concerns over police misconduct, criminal justice reform and mass incarceration in the city. His win was seen as a high point for the movement to elect more progressive prosecutors. 

But his tenure was defined by the coronavirus pandemic and an overwhelming sense among San Francisco residents that crime, especially property crime, was both out of control and not a priority for the district attorney. This caused the political winds to shift dramatically against Boudin, with most San Francisco residents signaling on Tuesday that his laxer approach to certain kinds of crime was unacceptable.

The recall was also much about the impressions people in San Francisco have of their own city as it was about crime rates. Homelessness and public drug use remain a persistent issue in the city, and residents have reported feeling uncomfortable in large swaths of commercial areas because of it.

Boudin sought to fight the recall effort by labeling it a natural reaction to the election of a progressive prosecutor and linking the effort to Republicans and police unions.

But those claims didn’t move voters, many of whom said they had made their minds up based on how they felt in their city. And while Republican money did help the effort, the push to recall Boudin was initially supported by Democrats.

The result in San Francisco will have national implications, too, underscoring just how risky it will be for Democrats to go too far on certain core issues such as combatting crime.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is now set to appoint an interim district attorney.  

Alex Padilla was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace Kamala Harris after she became vice pres

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California will advance to the special general election for the remainder of Vice President Kamala Harris’ term, CNN projects. CNN also projects that he will make the ballot for the regular general election in November for the full six-year term that starts in January.

Padilla was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 to the seat Harris vacated when she became vice president.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference in Sacramento last month.

Incumbent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California will advance to the general election, CNN projects.

Newsom, who comfortably beat back an attempt to recall him last year, is seeking a second term.