Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who rose to office promising sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system and then faced intense criticism over public safety issues, has lost his re-election bid, The Associated Press projected.

Gascón was defeated by Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who tapped into voter concerns about crime and homelessness in the nation’s most populous county and the nation’s largest police jurisdiction.

In recent weeks, Gascón made national headlines when he announced that he supported clemency for Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the brothers convicted of murdering their parents in 1989. The legal saga attracted renewed public attention this fall after the debut of a miniseries and a Netflix documentary about their lives.

Gascón took office in 2020 amid national fury over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He harnessed the progressive energy surrounding that summer’s protests over police misconduct and racial inequality, riding a political wave that in previous cycles helped elect crossover prosecutors in cities like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.

In office, Gascón quickly set about implementing his reformist agenda.

He barred prosecutors in his office from seeking the death penalty and various sentencing enhancements, halted the prosecution of juveniles as adults, and ended cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.

But many of these initiatives provoked a fierce reaction, including from some of the county’s rank and file prosecutors.

Gascón avoided two recall attempts, both of which failed to secure spots on the ballot. Meanwhile, resistance to aggressive criminal justice reforms continued to grow throughout California. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was removed from office in 2022 after his critics attacked him as a soft-on-crime progressive.

Gascón and other Los Angeles political leaders have attempted to refute accusations that the city is unsafe, a perception deepened in part by videos of retail robberies.

Gascón faced 11 challengers in the county’s March 5 nonpartisan primary, advancing to a runoff against Hochman, an independent who is running for California attorney general as a Republican in 2022.

Hochman pledged to crack down on “anarchy” and presented his candidacy as a radical break with the Gascon era.

“District Attorney George Gascón has spectacularly failed to protect our residents, leading to a spiral of lawlessness that endangers all residents of Los Angeles County,” Hochman said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “It’s time to stop playing politics with people’s lives. “It’s time we had a district attorney who fights for victims, not criminals.”

Gascón attempted to change perceptions about his tenure and emphasized that he understood the growing anxiety about public safety. But pre-election public polls showed him trailing Hochman. in a survey conducted from September 25 to October 1.For example, Hochman was 30 percentage points ahead of Gascón.

Hochman, 60, was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California in the 1990s. He then served as assistant attorney general for the tax division of the U.S. Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.

Gascón, 70, previously served as San Francisco’s attorney general, a position once held by Vice President Kamala Harris before she won the state’s attorney general’s office. He was also deputy police chief in Los Angeles, as well as police chief in Mesa, Arizona, and San Francisco.

This article was originally published in NBCNews.com