6 cities where police reform is shaping the race for mayor

The rush to slash police funding and add new limits on use of force in the wake of George Floyd’s death hasn’t stopped policing from emerging as a top issue in big city mayoral contests across the country.

In Minneapolis, critics say the mayor should have done more to defund the police department, and the city is on edge as the trial for Floyd's killing begins. In Atlanta, the mayor is facing a challenge from the right amid a spike in crime that has led one wealthy neighborhood to float seceding from the city. And in open races in Seattle and Boston, activists worry candidates who say they support big changes to the police department won’t deliver.

The fury of 2020 has quickly become a permanent fixture in urban mayoral politics, creating a litmus test some candidates must pass.

“If elected officials don’t take police brutality seriously, people are realizing they can vote them out of office and put someone in their seats who care,” Mary Sheffield, the Detroit City Council president pro tempore, told POLITICO. “Black voters in particular have awakened to see they have the ability wield real power.”

A year after Floyd’s death ignited racial justice protests all over the country, police reform is shaping the mayoral contests in Minneapolis, New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit and Seattle.

All the cities except New York hold nonpartisan elections, and all are run by Democrats. They all could serve as political barometers ahead of the 2022 congressional midterms, coming during a year in which few states are holding major elections.

Here’s a field guide to the issues and the candidates in those half dozen races.

Minneapolis

George Floyd’s death in this city of 420,000 was the catalyst for racial justice protests across the country, and where the slogan "Defund the police" gained national attention. Mayor Jacob Frey ran on a promise to improve the tense relationship between police and city residents when he was elected in 2018. But his campaign pledge came into question after police killed Floyd, which was documented in a disturbing video.

Frey soon came under harsh scrutiny in the months that followed, notably when he was booed out of a protest by activists for declining to call for defunding the police. Now, the first-term Frey faces two challengers: Activist Sheila Nezhad, who was an advocate for reallocating police funding as an organizer for grassroots group Reclaim the Block, and former state Rep. Kate Knuth, who supports creating a new police force but not “abolishing“ policing. Both are Democrats.

The push to defund the police has skeptics even in deep blue cities. In Minneapolis, the City Council voted to shift some money away from the police department last year, and is pushing a proposal to replace the department with a new public safety agency, but Frey and others have stood in the way of dismantling the force.

The city is preparing for the trial of police officer Derek Chauvin, the officer charged with third-degree murder in Floyd's death. Chauvin's trial could spark another round of protests and calls for reform in the city. Minneapolis recently agreed to pay Floyd's family a $27 million settlement in the wake of his death.

Many people in Minneapolis are still trying to “fully understand what happened last summer," said City Council President Lisa Bender, who is not running for reelection and has not endorsed in the mayoral race.

"People are in a really emotional place about public safety in Minneapolis,” Bender said, describing the city as “tense” ahead of the Chauvin trial. “Folks are really still reeling from what happened last summer.”

Atlanta

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms faces a challenge from City Council President Felicia Moore amid rising homicides in the city. Contested mayoral races are rare in Atlanta, where the last high-profile challenge to an incumbent occurred in the late 1990s.

Protests over Floyd's killing came to a head in Atlanta last summer, and Bottoms placed new limits on police use of force in the weeks that followed. Bottoms is seeking a second term after being elected in 2017. Moore, also a Democrat, is running on a platform that includes "safer neighborhoods" in response to the city's rising crime rate.

"It is very interesting to see that progressive forces can be put into motion, and engage in the kind of protests we saw and the kind of advocacy we saw, and then see internally a backlash against that," said Xochitl Bervera, an attorney and organizer in Atlanta. "You see the kind of, what I would say, are the status quo holders, the people that have a vested self interest in things staying how they are."

But even with crime being top of mind for voters, the political environment in Atlanta can't be easily defined as for or against defunding the police, said former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. The city's wealthy, majority-white Buckhead neighborhood has even considered seceding from the city so it can create it’s own police force.

"It's really complex,“ Reed said. “I don't think it's the opposite of defund the police. I think that there's a real desire for hands-on involvement. And I think that that has been very difficult in a Covid environment.”

"There was a fracture in the community relationship with the police around the Rayshard Brooks murder, and we really haven't been able to put the relationship between the community and the police back together," Reed added.

Georgia was a pivotal state in the 2020 election, and the mayoral race in its state capital is likely to draw national attention. Bottoms has also been an ally of President Joe Biden, and was considered for a role in the president's administration.

Boston

Boston is at an electoral turning point. In a city that has been run by white men for its entire history, the five major candidates to replace outgoing Boston Mayor Marty Walsh are people of color.

City Council President Kim Janey will soon be Boston’s first Black woman acting mayor once Walsh is confirmed as Biden’s labor secretary. Janey is is widely expected to enter the race.

Already, City Councilors Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell and Annissa Essaibi George are already running for the seat, along with state Rep. Jon Santiago and John Barros, Boston's former chief of economic development.

Campbell has made reform central to her bid for mayor, and is proposing a $50 million budget cut to the city's police force.

Police reform efforts are underway in Boston, a city that's been slow to change its racist reputation. City leaders disappointed activists when they opted to cut 3 percent of the city's police budget last year in a high-profile vote. Walsh convened a task force in the wake of Floyd's death, and recently signed a new law to establish a police accountability office, based off recommendations from that group. Boston is "ground zero" for racism and policing problems, said activist Jamarhl Crawford, but he gives credit to Walsh's recent efforts.

"These last two years have seen more done for police reform in Boston than for my entire lifetime," said Crawford, who is a member of Boston's police reform task force.

Tensions between police and protesters are still high, though. The Boston Police Department faced scrutiny for how it responded to racial justice protests after body cam footage showed one officer beating protesters, and another appear to brag about hitting protesters with his vehicle.

Police reform has been a major theme in the race for mayor, but Crawford cautioned that messaging from the candidates may not match what they would do if elected.

"What happened with police reform, in my opinion is, it became the cause célèbre so everybody's talking about it," Crawford said. "In this age of protest and Black Lives Matter and all this type of stuff, I think a lot of people are trying to portray themselves a wee bit more revolutionary than they really are."

Leadership of the department is also in limbo. Boston Police Commissioner Dennis White was placed on leave just two days after he was appointed the city's top cop, when domestic violence allegations surfaced from the 1990s.

New York City

New York City saw widespread protests in the wake of Floyd’s death. The city soon pledged to cut $1 billion from the police budget, though the actual amount of funding cut fell short of that goal. Now, almost all the leading mayoral candidates say NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea should be replaced by the next mayoral administration, though opinions differ on who the new commissioner should be.

Well over a dozen serious candidates are vying to replace term-limited Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who has been criticized for losing control of his police department during his time as mayor. Candidates vocal on police issues include Maya Wiley, who used to chair a police watchdog agency, and Dianne Morales, who serves on the board of the city’s Human Services Council.

“On the issue of policing, there is a big shift. It is one of the top issues that is discussed. That has not always been the case,” said Kumar Rao of the Working Families Party, a significant third party in New York. “This time around, it’s not just reform that’s at the ballot box, but real transformation and rethinking of how we approach public safety as a whole.”

A spike in crime could complicate the push for reform. Major New York City crimes in January were at the highest rate for that month since de Blasio took office in 2014. But political watchers acknowledge the dynamic could change in an instant.

"New York City is always one bad shooting or terrible video away from mass movements in the streets like we saw last summer,” said Eric Phillips, a Democratic strategist and former aide to de Blasio. “In a city that is this dynamic, with this many people, that involves this many every day human interactions, the possibility that will happen in the next several months is high. This could all change overnight.”

Detroit

Mayor Mike Duggan is seeking a third term and faces a challenge from Anthony Adams, the former deputy mayor. Adams, who lists reforming police and reducing crime as top priorities, faces an uphill battle against the well-funded mayor.

Detroit has one of the highest crime rates in the country, and leaders there have faced calls to reform how police do their jobs. In the fall, a federal judge put a temporary ban on certain use-of-force police measures, including chokeholds.

But the city has addressed the push for police reform earlier than some other parts of the country, former Mayor Kenneth Cockrel said. Detroit has a majority-Black police force, and dealt with some police brutality issues decades ago.

"In some ways we went through it earlier and before a number of other cities," Cockrel said. "Certainly after George Floyd's death, like a lot of major cities, we had at [a] certain point, nightly protests that were taking place. But in terms of an actual incident here, there really hasn't been a major inciting incident, I would say, probably in a couple of decades now."

Still, activists groups are at odds with police and city leaders after racial justice protests in the spring and summer. The race for mayor is still taking shape, said Sheffield, the Detroit councilor. But crime and policing are emerging as top issues.

"People are demanding justice," Sheffield said in an email. "If they feel their mayor and other leaders won’t deliver it and even hinder the pursuit thereof, there will be serious electoral consequences."

Seattle

More than half a dozen candidates have jumped into the open-seat race to replace Mayor Jenny Durkan in Seattle. Among those calling for police reform are Colleen Echohawk of the Chief Seattle Club and City Councilmember M. Lorena González.

Racial justice protests reached a fever pitch in the city last year when protesters created a self-described autonomous zone in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Durkan faced pressure from all sides for her handling of the protests, and announced in December she would not seek a second term.

Seattle cut funding from its police budget last year, and now city residents will decide what to do with the freed up funds.

"Those issues are going to be on people's minds when they go to vote," Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant said. "All the candidates are going to be falling over themselves to be the best lipservice-giver to those issues. Now, will we see an actual fighter?"

"I don't see that happening just yet," Sawant added.