Gascón concedes to Hochman in race for LA County district attorney – Daily News

by Junna Base November 8, 2024

Embattled incumbent George Gascón was defeated by former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman in the race for Los Angeles District Attorney after the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office released preliminary results from the previous day’s election around 4 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6th had.

Overall, Hochman got 61.46%, Gascón 38.54%. The semi-official results are still preliminary. The registry office will only complete the vote evaluation in a few days and has until December 3rd to confirm the election results.

UPDATE: Former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman declares victory in LA district attorney race

“The shift to the right across America last night is heartbreaking. Democrats still have a long way to go, but the work is more important than ever and our commitment will not waver,” Gascón said. “Nonetheless, I called Mr. Hochman and wish him well as the next District Attorney of Los Angeles County. I am deeply proud of what we have accomplished over the last four years and am grateful to the communities that have been and always will be at the heart of criminal justice reform.”

“Los Angeles County voters have spoken out and said enough is enough of DA Gascón’s pro-crime extreme policies; They look forward to a safer future. As prosecutor, I look forward to representing all people, whether they voted for me or not, because their safety is my responsibility,” Hochman said early Wednesday after the Associated Press declared him the winner.

LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: View a chart of the latest vote counts

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Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon at a pre-election night event at The Abbey in West Hollywood on Monday, November 4, 2024. (Photo by Jarret Liotta)

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Although Gascón was the incumbent and received the most votes in the March primary, he entered Election Day as an underdog. Recent polls put him 24 to 30 percentage points behind Hochman.

Gascón, who was seeking a second term as Los Angeles district attorney, took office in 2020 with a progressive platform focused on criminal justice reform and police accountability that resonated with voters as it became a statewide one There was an outcry over the murder of George Floyd in police custody.

But he has struggled to achieve the same level of voter support this year.

Although he placed first in the primary, Gascón received only 25% of the vote – which some political observers viewed as a poor result for an incumbent. This race featured a crowded field of 12 candidates.

Hochman, meanwhile, took a tougher stance on crime. He crafted a narrative that L.A. County had become less safe in the last four years — and placed the blame for the rise in crime squarely on Gascón. Hochman has repeatedly called Gascón’s policies, which he sees as lax, a “social experiment” that has “failed” and made criminals less afraid of crime.

Before Election Day, many viewed the district attorney race as a referendum on the current state of public safety in the nation’s most populous county.

During the campaign, both candidates cited different statistics to argue whether L.A. County has been safer since Gascón took office nearly four years ago.

The acting district attorney emphasized that violent crime, including homicides, has declined, but acknowledged that some property crimes, such as car thefts, have increased. He said his office has dealt with organized retail theft and has been “very aggressive” in combating hate crimes, human trafficking and waste theft.

Gascón countered claims that he was too soft on criminals, saying under his leadership the DA’s office prosecuted serious and violent crime cases at rates comparable to those before he took office.

At the same time, his campaign highlighted his work on criminal justice reform and calling for greater police accountability.

Fourteen innocent people who were wrongfully convicted, some of them as children, were exonerated under Gascón’s government, his campaign said. The DA’s office has also filed five officer-involved shooting cases and 10 cases of excessive force against police officers – a stark difference from the single-officer-involved shooting case the DA’s office filed in the two decades before Gascón took office had filed, his campaign says.

About two weeks ago, Gascón announced he would ask a judge to consider resentencing Erik and Lyle Menendez, the high-profile case of two brothers who shot and killed their parents in 1989.

The brothers, now 56 and 53, are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, but Gascón wants the sentences reduced so the brothers can be released from prison on parole. The brothers’ lawyers say their clients were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father.

While Gascón’s critics described him as soft on crime, he accused his opponent in the DA contest of wanting to return to an era of mass incarceration that disproportionately affected people of color.

Hochman denied that he supported either widespread mass incarceration or what he called “Gascón’s decarceration policy.” Instead, Hochman previously said that if he were prosecutor, he would take a “hard means approach” in which each case would be examined individually based on a defendant’s criminal history, the crime or crimes committed and the impact on any victims.

Hochman also dismissed Gascón’s claim that violent crime has declined, saying the incumbent relied on Los Angeles Police Department statistics that only showed crime trends in the city of LA

On the other hand, Hochman said, data from the California Department of Justice, which takes into account crime trends for all 88 cities in LA County, shows that between 2020 and 2023, violent crime, property crimes and hate crimes increased by double digits. Shoplifting rose 133% statewide.

During the election campaign, both candidates also commented on their opponent’s previous affiliation with the Republican Party.

Hochman ran for attorney general as a Republican in 2022, but switched to no party preference last year. He described himself as a “centrist” and said he ran as an independent this year because the DA is a nonpartisan office and the DA’s work should not be political.

Responding to his opponent’s criticism of his Republican past, Hochman said that Gascón had been a Republican almost twice as long as he had been before either candidate switched parties. Gascón, in turn, noted that Hochman was a Republican much younger than he was.