I'm in the camp that believes "Defund the Police" did hurt down ballot candidates at the margins. Maybe Cunningham pulls out the NC Senate race and they save a few House seats. We will never know.
Most police reform is a local issue anyway. We are already seeing what we might call the Baltimore Effect. After the Freddie Gray murder, Baltimore police basically stopped doing some of their job, a sort of "Blue Flu" to prove that their services were needed. For all the utopian aspirations of some "Defunders" there is crime and police are important in preventing that.
However, there is one way to dramatically decrease police harassment of people of color: legalize pot. Whether or not you go further with changing how you prosecute harder drug crimes, especially possession, is another matter. Charging dealers and traffickers but sending users and holders to rehab is perhaps a possibility. But marijuana legalization is coming and coming soon.
"Routine" if racially targeted stops of people of color are not more likely to find drugs that stops of whites, perhaps because Blacks are disproportionately stopped. If there was no longer a criminal penalty for having a dime bag of pot or even a gram of cocaine, then you will simply see fewer people of color incarcerated.
It's a backdoor measure that doesn't require picking battles with police unions and is beginning to enjoy more and more support. Ending the "War on Drugs" needs to happen, because drugs won decades ago. Like Afghanistan, we've lost a war we could never win, but insist on still fighting it. It's time for a new way.
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