A Prosecutor Ditched The GOP. Now She’s Forging Her Own Path In California.

On paper, Anne Marie Schubert could be a Democrat. An openly gay mother of two from a famously left-of-center state, Schubert describes herself as socially liberal on abortion and women’s rights.

But as the tough-on-crime district attorney of Sacramento County, Schubert could also be a Republican — and she was, until 2018.

Instead of hindering her, Schubert’s rejection of party labels, she hopes, will help her in Tuesday’s primary for California attorney general, the most contested race in an otherwise sleepy election where Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is expected to sail to an easy victory.

Schubert, known for prosecuting the “Golden State Killer,” is charting an unconventional path for attorney general. She’s an independent, appearing on the ballot as “NPP,” no party preference. Schubert is running against incumbent Rob Bonta — a Newsom-appointed Democrat who championed criminal justice reforms in the state Assembly — and two Republicans. After outraising Bonta’s other challengers, and running with an array of law-enforcement backers, Schubert is widely considered the favorite for second place. In California’s primary, the top two finishers, regardless of their partisan affiliations, advance to the general election.

“At some point, California is going to elect an independent, and I feel like the time is now,” Schubert, 58, told HuffPost in an interview last week.

The four-way race for attorney general comes amid heightened anxiety about crime and homelessness, and raging debate over criminal justice reforms.

This climate is seen as good an opening as any for a non-Democrat to win statewide. That hasn’t happened since 2006, when Californians reelected movie star and GOP moderate Arnold Schwarzenegger. California Republicans have been in a slump ever since. Last year, conservatives angered by COVID-19 protocols triggered a recall of Newsom, which voters overwhelmingly rejected.

“The stage is set for it to be a good Republican year,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. “And crime is one of those issues that people in California tend to focus their dissatisfaction on.”

The theory that California may be getting ready to reject progressives is playing out further down-ballot. In the race to replace termed-out Controller Betty Yee, Republican Lanhee Chen is running hard to become the state’s next chief fiscal officer, channeling concerns about rising inflation and deflating retirement accounts. The recall election of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — and another DA recall brewing in Los Angeles — are seen as referendums on progressive prosecutors and spiking violent crime in those cities. Schubert, who has endorsed both recalls, is the embodiment of those frustrations highest up on the ticket.

“This does prevent an interesting test case for whether people will vote for somebody who is truly focused more on the policy,” said Mike Madrid, a veteran GOP strategist in California and co-founder of the anti-Donald Trump Lincoln Project, talking about Schubert. “Our political structure is overwhelmingly white, progressive and coastal counties. There’s a reason why Gavin Newsom, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi come from the same county. That’s literally the electoral base of the state even though it’s the least reflective of California.”

The progressive argument against tough-on-crime prosecutors like Schubert is they approach criminal justice in a way that’s outdated and ineffective, increases prison populations and disproportionately harms communities of color. And Bonta’s campaign points out that rising violent crime is still a concerning trend in Sacramento. “This campaign has been a disaster for Schubert. She is circling the drain,” Bonta campaign strategist Nathan Click told HuffPost.

Schubert is battling two Republicans for the tough-on-crime mantle: former Assistant U.S. Attorney General Nathan Hochman, the GOP-backed candidate, and Los Angeles attorney Eric Early, whom some consider the race’s “MAGA” option. (Bonta’s allies, in a weird but not uncommon tactic for hand-picking a general election opponent, have paid for ads to increase Early’s name recognition.)

Schubert has the backing of dozens of law enforcement groups, giving her an edge against the Republicans. As Sacramento DA, she developed a national reputation for using DNA evidence to pursue cold cases, resulting in the 2019 conviction of the “Golden State Killer” decades after his crimes.

Bonta, who was known in the state Assembly for sponsoring legislation to end cash bail, was plucked from that position in 2021 to replace Xavier Becerra, who joined President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as health and human services secretary. The job of attorney general in California has traditionally been a launch pad for governor or other higher office. Becerra was elected after then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris moved over to the U.S. Senate.

Talking to reporters, Schubert describes herself as a “fixer” to emphasize her apolitical approach.

“That sounds kind of silly, but I am a fixer by nature,” the career prosecutor told HuffPost over Zoom, sitting in front of a brightly colored painting. Schubert has icy short blonde hair and pulls no punches. “I enjoy not just the importance of the work, but the mental challenges of trying to fix a problem. Does that make sense?”

While her detractors slam her leaving the GOP as a hollow move designed to make her more palatable to a left-of-center electorate, Schubert said she genuinely believes that “public safety” roles such as attorney general — a position that is given wide latitude to prosecute civil and criminal offenses — should be divorced from politics.

“One-hundred percent,” she said. “It’s a nonpartisan job.”

As Schubert tells it, she was a Republican for most of her life before dropping her GOP affiliation four years ago following a “very politicized” reelection campaign in Sacramento.

“I decided after 2018, I’m like, ‘This is bullshit’ — excuse my language. Public safety is not red team versus blue team. This is just public safety,” said Schubert, who launched her campaign for attorney general on a deadly serious note, surrounded by the families of murder victims and missing children.

When Schubert, who is gay, talks about coming from a conservative family, she’s not underselling it: Her brother Frank Schubert was the GOP strategist and mastermind behind Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that sought to outlaw same-sex marriage.

Schubert, for obvious reasons, didn’t support Prop 8. She also opposed Props 47 and 57, the criminal justice reform measures that reduced the penalties for certain nonviolent crimes and granted early release to eligible incarcerated people to reduce prison overcrowding. The two measures are at the heart of debates over whether they’re to blame for highly visible instances of crime plaguing cities. Asked about repealing Prop 47, the measure that reduced thefts of under $950 to a misdemeanor, Bonta told CalMatters that current law already allows the Department of Justice to go after major theft rings.

“We’re in a moment that we probably haven’t seen in about 30 years, where California is really in this law-and-order type election,” said Rob Stutzman, Schubert’s top political adviser. “It provides some balance toward the center or right-of-center away from Democratic dominance.”

Bonta is still the heavy favorite in the general election. “He’s going to have a bunch of institutional strengths and levers that he can pull by virtue of the Democratic Party being healthy,” said Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist in Los Angeles. At the same time, “there’s not enough data to see how a no-party-preference candidate would do against the Democrat in a more high-profile race like attorney general.”

It’s unlikely that an independent or Republican will be able to repeat the magic of “The Governator” while the parties are so polarized, said Wesley Hussey, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento.

“Schwarzenegger was such an unusual situation,” he said. “That was also 20 years ago when the state had more Republicans. He was able to transcend party because he was, well, Schwarzenegger.”

His advice for Republicans in California is simple.

“The best chance for a Republican to win is to run in a different state.”