A tumultuous first term for the Los Angeles County district. Lawyer. George Gascón appears likely to end up in a failed re-election bid, as he trails rival Nathan Hochman by more than 20 percentage points in initial results.

Gascón came to office in 2020 with 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 rising crime and homelessness in Los Angeles.

Gascón supporters and criminologists dispute that link, but Hochman’s message resonated with voters, and polls consistently predicted his victory before Election Day.

The first rounds of results released Tuesday showed Hochman receiving more than 1.1 million votes and Gascón about 690,000, or nearly 62% to 38% in favor of the challenger.

“While the final votes have not been counted, everything indicates that the voices of Los Angeles County residents have been heard and they are saying that enough is enough with George (Gascón)’s policies and that they look forward to a safer future” , Hochman. he said after the first results were announced.

Challenger Nathan Hochman speaks alongside actor Esmé Bianco at a press conference last month, criticizing current Los Angeles County Prosecutor George Gascón’s handling of cases involving gender violence.

(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

on sunday, the last of three surveys in the race conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Government Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, showed the incumbent trailing by 25 percentage points, the same margin he faced in the survey of August 18 and only slightly better than its 30-point deficit in the survey of October 8.

Despite the many negative indicators for his campaign in the weeks leading up to Election Day, Gascón was in good spirits in an interview with the Times at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the California Democratic Party’s election event at the ballroom of a cavernous hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“I feel very optimistic,” he said. “It’s a real race. It’s a tough race. I’m not underestimating that. But I think we have a good chance of winning.”

Hochman, who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2022, emerged from a crowded primary field to challenge Gascón in March. As a former Republican running in a deeply blue county, Hochman resisted repeated attempts to link him to former President Donald Trump. He also got financial support from some conservative mega-donors.

Los Angeles County District. Lawyer. George Gascón mingles at West Hollywood Abbey at an election eve event held by leaders of the LGBTQ+ community.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

But Hochman, who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over the summer, has largely avoided partisan politics and ran 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 overthrew the veteran district. Lawyer. Jackie Lacey in 2020, riding a wave of national anguish over the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since then, he has been the target of two failed impeachment attempts and has become a pariah among his own prosecutors: More than 20 of them have sued him, alleging they were demoted or retaliated against for questioning their policies.

Gascón imposed radical changes on his first day in office. Prosecutors were prohibited from seeking the death penalty or trying juveniles as adults; a series of minor crimes were no longer to be prosecuted; and in an attempt to combat prison overcrowding, he promoted diversion programs and less punitive sentences.

TO Judge ruled that one of Gascón’s signature policies was illegal just three months into his mandate. His handling of some cases, in particular the prosecution of Hannah Tubbs, a 26-year-old woman judged as a minor for a sexual assault she committed when she was 17, sparked a national uproar and forced him to backtrack on some of his all-or-nothing positions.

Gascón, speaking Monday at an LGBTQ+ event in West Hollywood, has been portrayed as too soft on crime and has been questioned by his own staff for his progressive policies.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Although Gascón fulfilled some of his campaign promises, police officers aggressively pursued in fatal uses of excessive force and improved the office’s efforts to exonerate people who had been wrongfully convicted; He was never able to shake the perception that he was “soft on crime.”

Violent crime also increased 8% countywide from 2019 to 2023, according to data from the California Department of Justice. There were much larger increases in violent crime in California counties that are home to more traditional prosecutors, and violent crime has been trending downward in the city of Los Angeles this year, but voters seemed to blame the rise in county only at the foot of Gascón. .

Born in Los Angeles, Hochman was a varsity tennis player at Beverly Hills High School before attending Brown University and Stanford Law School. He pursued fraud and public corruption cases as a federal prosecutor for several years before entering private practice, where he defended former Sheriff Lee Baca on corruption charges.

Hochman supporters descended on a yard on Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills on election night. Several former Lacey staffers and a handful of Los Angeles County prosecutors who support the challenger could be seen milling around, while the candidate remained out of sight at a private party.

María Ramírez, a veteran prosecutor who ran in the primary and later endorsed Hochman, said removing Gascón from office would represent a “return to normalcy” for hundreds of deputy district attorneys who have spent years fighting with Gascón over his vision for the position and refusal to involve them in his political decisions.

“Throughout these four years, because we’ve been so distracted with all the lawsuits and the fighting, really what we want is to be able to get back to what we do, and that’s really doing our job and protecting people, processing crimes. and keep our community safe,” he said.

Others present included the district deputy. Lawyers. Jon Hatami and John McKinney, who competed in the primary against Hochman and Gascón. Orange County District. Lawyer. Todd Spitzer was also present, along with Michele Hanisee, co-president of the union representing Los Angeles County prosecutors.

Hochman campaign spokesman Stu Pfeiffer said some of the pastries for the event were provided by Ruben’s Bakery & Mexican Food in Compton, which was destroyed in a January robbery by a mob of teenagers after a street takeover. Earlier this year, Hochman and several other county attorneys held a campaign event in support of small businesses.

Gascón and other progressives have portrayed Hochman as too close to law enforcement, questioning his ability to hold police officers accountable when they mislead him. millions in campaign support for police unions.

Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva left in 2022 with Gascón’s 2024 rival, Nathan Hochman, who critics say is too close to law enforcement to hold police accountable for excessive force and other misconduct.

(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

But Hochman He raised and spent much more than Gascón, who had relied on enormous support from wealthy liberal megadonors and national Democrats to win office in 2020. Hochman’s critics say the challenger painted a dystopian portrait of Los Angeles that doesn’t match actual crime statistics or the reality about the land.

Hochman’s explanations for how he would reduce crime as district attorney have been vague, but Gascón’s opponents still lined up behind him.

In addition to police unions, hundreds of veteran deputy prosecutors publicly took a stance against the incumbent.

On the last day of the campaign, Hochman stood in front of the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles, backed by dozens of prosecutors who chanted his slogan: “Gascón must go.”

Before polls closed on Tuesday, Gascón noted that large swaths of those surveyed in pre-election polls had not yet decided who they would vote for, and that first-time voters could also play a key role in the race.

Gascón added that the polls also brought his campaign down in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, but he ended up winning the election.

“Frankly, we were way down in the third week of October 2020. The results were what they were,” he said. “I think it’s likely we’ll get a similar result this time.”

When asked what he plans to do if Hochman wins, he said he would continue to reside in Los Angeles.

“I haven’t considered it yet,” Gascón said. “But I will certainly continue to live and be happy.”