Nathan Hochman wins race for Los Angeles County D.A., beating George Gascón
Tue, November 5, 2024 at 11:53 PM
A tumultuous first term in office for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón ended in a failed reelection bid, with challenger Nathan Hochman defeating him by a wide margin.
Gascón swept into office in 2020 on a promise of reform and restorative justice, but Hochman — a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney — has spent months painting the incumbent as responsible for increases in crime and homelessness around L.A.
Gascón's supporters and criminologists dispute that link, but Hochman's message resonated with voters, with polls consistently forecasting his victory ahead of election day.
The first rounds of returns released Tuesday showed Hochman receiving more than 1.1 million votes and Gascón around 700,000 — or about 61% to 39% in favor of the challenger.
The Associated Press called the race for Hochman.
“While the final votes haven’t been tallied, all indications are the voices of the residents of LA County have been heard and they’re saying enough is enough of George [Gascón’s] policies and they look forward to a safer future,” Hochman said after the first results were announced.
Hochman supporters gathered on Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills on election night. Addressing a jubilant crowd following the initial results, the candidate praised many of the police officers and prosecutors who supported him, and said his likely victory was the result of a bipartisan coalition of people for whom safety was a “crossover issue” in divisive political times.
He repeated promises to strip partisan politics from the district attorney’s office and treat “justice” as his client as top prosecutor.
“We will go back to just two things: the facts and the law,” he said.
Hochman's strong performance came as no surprise. On Sunday, the last of three polls on the race conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, showed the incumbent behind by 25 percentage points, the same margin he faced in the survey on Aug. 18 and only slightly better than his 30-point deficit in the poll on Oct. 8.
Despite the many negative indicators for his campaign in the weeks leading up to election day, Gascón remained in good spirits in an interview with the Times at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the California Democratic Party’s election event in a cavernous hotel ballroom in downtown L.A.
“I feel very optimistic,” he said before the first wave of results. “It's a real race. It's a tough race. I'm not underestimating that. But I believe that we have a better than even chance of winning.”
Hochman, who unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in 2022, emerged from a crowded primary field to challenge Gascón in March. As a former Republican running in a deep-blue county, Hochman weathered repeated attempts to link him to former President Donald Trump. He also garnered financial support from some conservative megadonors.
But Hochman, who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over the summer, has largely eschewed partisan politics, running as an independent with a "hard middle" approach to criminal justice. His campaign centered on a simple promise to undo Gascón's most progressive policies and restore normalcy to a district attorney's office in disarray.
Gascón imposed sweeping changes on his first day in office. Prosecutors were barred from seeking the death penalty or trying juveniles as adults; a host of misdemeanors were no longer to be prosecuted; and in an attempt to combat prison crowding, he pushed diversion programs and less-punitive sentences.
A judge ruled that one of Gascón's signature policies was illegal just three months into his term. His handling of some cases — most notably the prosecution of Hannah Tubbs, a 26-year-old woman tried as a juvenile for a sex assault she committed when she was 17 — sparked national uproar and forced him to walk back some of his all-or-nothing positions.
Hochman has promised to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty again in limited circumstances. He has also said prosecutors will be able to broadly pursue sentencing enhancements again, which can add years of prison time for defendants accused of using guns in crimes or committing offenses on behalf of a gang.
AlthoughGascón delivered on some of his campaign promises — he aggressively prosecuted police officersin fatal uses of excessive force,
Violent crime also rose 8% countywide from 2019 to 2023,according to California Department of Justice data. There were much larger increases in violent crime in California counties that are home to more traditional prosecutors, and violent crime has been trending down in the city of Los Angeles this year.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nathan-hochman-surges-lead-over-045311467.html