HMM: Democrats Beware: A Progressive DA Fights for His Job — in Hipster Portland.

With its ubiquitous hipster coffee and IPAs, enduring live-and-let-live ethos and a politics so deep blue that the homeless guy outside the Whole Foods in the Pearl District solicited patrons to buy him a beer by bearing a “Fuck Trump” cardboard sign, Portland is hardly ripe for a Republican takeover.

But on Tuesday, the voters of Multnomah County, the surrounding jurisdiction and a county that has not voted Republican for president since 1960, could replace their incumbent district attorney, Mike Schmidt, with a man who was in the GOP until after Donald Trump became president.

“What I hear when I’m knocking on doors, is ‘Hey, I consider myself very liberal but this is out of step — we’re not getting served well,’” said Nathan Vasquez, a longtime prosecutor in the county office and now unaffiliated voter who’s challenging his boss, adding: “People definitely want public safety. It doesn’t mean people are wholly abandoning the idea of criminal justice reform. They just want it delivered in a pragmatic, practical way.”

Should Vasquez prevail, it would represent more than the rejection of a progressive prosecutor. It would be the culmination of simmering local frustration with crime, homelessness and drug abuse and a resounding correction to the shift left on criminal justice that took place here and in so many cities in 2020.

It should also get the attention of Democratic lawmakers everywhere.

It will get their attention. Whether they have any intention of changing their ways after the election remains to be seen and isn’t to be trusted.