Gascon vs. Hochman for Los Angeles County District Attorney – Daily News

Although Gascón is the incumbent and the biggest vote-getter in the March primarieshe arrived on election day as the underdog. Recent polls had Gascón trailing Hochman by 24 Unpleasant 30 percentage points.

Gascón, who is seeking a second term as LA district attorney, took office in 2020 on a progressive platform focused on criminal justice reform and police accountability that resonated with voters amid a national outcry over the murder of George Floyd while in police custody.

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

Although he finished first in the primaries, Gascón received only 25% of the votes – which some political observers considered a poor performance for a sitting president. That race consisted of a busy field of twelve candidates.

Hochman, meanwhile, ran on a platform that takes a tougher approach to crime. He concocted the narrative that LA County had become less safe over the past four years — placing the blame for the increase in crimes squarely on Gascón. Hochman has repeatedly described Gascón’s policies, which he considers lax a ‘social experiment’ that ‘failed’ and made criminals less afraid to commit crimes.

Whether Hochman’s message was effective in convincing enough people to vote for him will become clearer in the coming days as more ballots are counted.

At least on election night, the first numbers from the registration office showed that Hochman had a comfortable lead over Gascón for the time being.

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

On the campaign trail, both candidates cited different statistics to share their thoughts on whether LA County has been safer since Gascón took office nearly four years ago.

The current district attorney emphasized that violent crimes, including murder, have declined, while acknowledging that some property crimes have car thefts have increased. He said his office has been cracking down on organized retail theft and has been “very aggressive” in dealing with it hate crimeshuman trafficking and waste theft.

Despite claims that he is too soft on criminals, Gascón says that under his leadership the Public Prosecutor’s Office has prosecuted cases of serious and violent crimes at a pace comparable to before he took office.

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

Fourteen innocent people wrongfully convicted, some as children, have been exonerated under Gascón’s administration, his campaign said. The district attorney’s office has also filed five officer-involved shooting cases and 10 cases of excessive force against law enforcement — a far cry from the single-officer shooting case the district attorney’s office has filed in its two decades before Gascón took office, according to his campaign. .

About two weeks ago, Gascón announced he would ask a judge to consider resenting Erik and Lyle Menendezthe high-profile case of two brothers who shot their parents dead 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 on parole. Lawyers for the brothers say their clients were victims of sexual abuse by their father.

While Gascón’s critics call him “soft” on crime, he has accused his opponent in the DA race of wanting to return to an era of mass incarceration that disproportionately affected people of color.

Hochman denied his support for full mass incarceration or what he called “Gascón’s de-carceration policy.” Instead, Hochman said that if he were a prosecutor, he would take a “hard middle” approach, reviewing each case individually, based on a suspect’s criminal history, the crime or crimes committed and the impact on any victims.

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

On the other hand, Hochman says, 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 crimes, property crimes and hate crimes increased by double digits, while shoplifting increased nationally by 133%.

During the campaign, both candidates also commented on their opponent’s past ties to the Republican party.

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

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