You may recall the name of Mayor Lovely Warren of Rochester, New York. She became something of a national media figure last year following the death of Daniel Prude in police custody. The finger-pointing and blame-shifting that followed reached a point where the police chief and his entire command staff quit in protest. (Mayor Warren then fired the police chief after he’d already quit.) More trouble followed for the Mayor’s household when her husband somehow wound up facing federal drug trafficking charges.

Yes, it’s been an interesting ride for Rochester’s residents with Lovely Warren in charge. She is up for reelection this year and had repeatedly stated that she wasn’t going to be “distracted” by all of those headlines and was prepared to serve another term. But it turns out that fate had other plans. She drew a primary challenge from a fellow Democrat, City Councilman Malik Evans. When the dust settled last night, it because obvious that the voters of Rochester had had enough of the circus and were prepared to go in a different direction. Warren was handily defeated, with Evans taking two-thirds of the vote. (Daily Wire)

One too many scandal hit incumbent Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren to survive this time around. The embattled Democratic mayor took a shellacking in the polls Tuesday night to primary challenger, fellow Democrat Malik Evans.

Warren, who was first elected in 2013, will not run on another party line, essentially assuring city councilman Evans will become mayor of Rochester.

Evans handily took the race, snagging 66% of the vote.

I’ve never been entirely clear on who, if anyone, was at fault in the Daniel Prude arrest and subsequent death. The police chief who quit has repeatedly accused the Mayor of asking him to lie and support her version of the story, which he refused to do. But emails revealed that the police had tried to keep the video of Prude’s death from going public. He has a lawsuit pending against Warren and the city, but that will take time to play out. Meanwhile, a grand jury declined to bring charges against any of the officers involved.

Former Police Chief La’Ron Singletary always seemed to come off better than Warren in the media, for what that’s worth. He seemed truly offended by Warren’s handling of the entire situation and repeatedly stated that his principles and work ethic would not allow him to serve in such an environment. Of course, none of us were flies on the wall when they had their private confrontations, so who can really say?

As to Warren’s husband, I suppose they are both adults and he has to be responsible for his own actions. But at the same time, it’s just difficult to imagine how you could be living with someone and not even have a clue that they are (allegedly) running a major drug trafficking ring. He was hit with a gun charge on top of that.

It wasn’t a small-time operation, either. Police recovered roughly $60K worth of crack, three firearms and more than $100K in cash. That’s rather hard to explain away as a simple case of forgetting to go to the bank to make a deposit.

All in all, the various scandals that Warren found herself entangled in may add up to a mountain or a molehill, but it seems as if the voters were simply done with the drama. That was quite the beating she took in the primary, so once she’s out of office, perhaps things in her city can calm down.