‘Defund the Police’ Movement Collapses Across America’s Most Liberal Cities

Across the bluest of regions in the United States, the leftist rallying call to “Defund the police” collapsed on election night, as even the most liberal voters rejected such plans.

Minneapolis, Minnesota 

The most blatant rejection of defunding the police came in deep blue Minneapolis, Minnesota — the nation’s ground zero for attacks on law enforcement following the death of George Floyd last summer which enflamed a series of deadly and violent riots across left-wing cities.

On Tuesday evening in Minneapolis, where more than 7-in-10 voters supported President Joe Biden against former President Trump in last year’s presidential election, voters voted down a plan to abolish the city’s police department and replace it with a “Department of Public Safety.”

Voters were asked:

Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions by the Department of Public Safety, with those specific functions to be determined by the Mayor and City Council by ordinance; which will not be subject to exclusive mayoral power over its establishment, maintenance, and command; and which could include licensed peace officers (police officers), if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety, with the general nature of the amendments being briefly indicated in the explanatory note below, which is made a part of this ballot? [Emphasis added]

About 56 percent of the Minneapolis voters rejected the abolishment of their police department while nearly 44 percent or 62,800 voters supported the plan.

New York

Across New York state, including in New York City, upstate New York, and Long Island, the defund the police movement flailed in mayoral and district attorney races.

Though Republican Curtis Sliwa of New York City’s Guardian Angels campaigned heavily on restoring public safety, reducing crime, as well as fully funding the New York Police Department (NYPD), Democrat Eric Adams ran on similar issues of crime.

Adams, a former NYPD officer who beat Sliwa with 66.5 percent of the vote, ran against the defund the police movement favored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other progressive Democrats in the city.

Adams told the New York Times in June:

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Maya Wiley want to slash the Police Department budget and shrink the police force at a time when Black and brown babies are being shot in our streets, hate crimes are terrorizing Asian and Jewish communities, and innocent New Yorkers are being stabbed and shot on their way to work. They are putting slogans and politics in front of public safety and would endanger the lives of New Yorkers.

Outside of the city, Republicans picked up district attorney seats in Long Island’s Nassau County and Suffolk County by running fierce campaign’s against the state’s bail reform policy that was signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and began in 2020.

The bail reform was a vehicle of the defund the police movement, abolishing bail for suspects charged with crimes like second-degree manslaughter, aggravated vehicular assault, third-degree assault, promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child, criminally negligent homicide, or aggravated vehicular homicide, among others.

In Nassau County, which voted 54 percent for Biden last year, prosecutor Anne Donnelly beat out Democrat Todd Kaminsky with 60 percent of the vote. Donnelly ran as a “tough on crime” candidate, highlighting the plight of crime victims, and asked voters to reject “turn ’em loose Todd” because of his support for the state’s bail reform law.

In Suffolk County, which supported Trump last year by a slim 230 votes, federal prosecutor Ray Tierney beat out Democrat Tim Sini with 57 percent of the vote by running against the bail reform law. Tierney ran as “a proven crime and corruption fighter,” painting Sini as a weak-on-crime candidate.

Elsewhere, in upstate New York, incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (D) was able to win a fifth term through a write-in campaign after he lost the Democrat primary to avowed socialist India Walton (D).

Brown was endorsed by the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association and had run against Walton’s plan to defund the Buffalo Police Department. Walton’s plan included cutting between $7.5 and $16 million from the Buffalo Police Department budget and said she would encourage police officers to retire to dwindle the agency’s numbers.

Seattle, Washington

One of the nation’s most liberal cities, Seattle, Washington, which voted more than 75 percent for Biden last year, was served a major upset in the city’s city attorney race.

Republican Ann Davison, who ran a law and order campaign, won nearly 60 percent of the vote against Democrat Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who supported abolishing the Seattle Police Department and once called police officers “serial killers,” among other things.

The pro-police sentiment across the nation comes as the latest Pew Research Center survey finds that most Americans want more funding for their police departments.

For instance, this year, just 15 percent of American adults said they want the budgets of their local police departments to be slashed. Meanwhile, nearly half said they want more funding for their police departments.

Similarly, as of July, about 6-in-10 American adults call violent crime “a very big problem in the country today” as the nation’s murder and violent crime rate continues climbing. In March, only 18 percent of Americans said they supported defunding the police.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.