Hochman beats Gascón in Los Angeles County D.A. election

A tumultuous first term in office for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón ended in a failed reelection bid Tuesday night, with challenger Nathan Hochman defeating him by a wide margin.

Hochman, who polls long predicted would oust Gascón, held a commanding 23-point lead based on early returns, outpacing the progressive incumbent by more than half a million votes. Gascón called Hochman to concede early Wednesday morning.

“The rightward shift across America last night is heartbreaking. Democrats have a long road ahead, but the work is more vital than ever and our commitment will not waver,” Gascón said in a statement, referencing President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past four years and grateful to the communities who have been and will always be the heart of criminal justice reform,” Gascón continued.

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.

Returns as of Wednesday morning showed Hochman receiving more than 1.4 million votes and Gascón around 890,000 — or about 61% to 38% in favor of the challenger.

The Associated Press called the race for Hochman late Tuesday night.

“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.

Challenger Nathan Hochman speaks alongside actor Esmé Bianco at a news conference last month, criticizing incumbent L.A. County D.A. George Gascón’s handling of cases involving gender-based violence.

(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

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.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón mingles at the Abbey in West Hollywood at an election eve event held by LGBTQ+ community leaders.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

But Hochman, who endorsed 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 ousted veteran Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey in 2020, riding a wave of national anguish over the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

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.

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

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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

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, but voters seemed to lay the blame for the county’s increase solely at Gascón’s feet.

Lacey, some of her former staffers and dozens of L.A. County prosecutors could be seen milling around Hochman’s election night event.

Maria Ramirez, a veteran prosecutor who ran in the primary and later endorsed Hochman, said knocking Gascón out of 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 office and refusal to involve them in his policy decisions.

“Through these four years, because we have been so distracted with all of the lawsuits and the fighting, really what we want is to be able to go back to what we do — and that is really do our jobs and protect people, prosecute crimes and keep our community safe,” she said.

Others present included Deputy Dist. Attys. Jon Hatami and John McKinney, who both ran in the primary against Hochman and Gascón. Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer was also in attendence, along with Michele Hanisee, president of the union that represents L.A. County prosecutors.

Stuart Pfeifer, Hochman’s campaign spokesman, said some of the pastries for the event were provided by Ruben’s Bakery & Mexican Food in Compton, which was destroyed in a smash-and-grab robbery in January by a mob of teens after a street takeover. Earlier this year, Hochman and several other county prosecutors held a campaign event in support of the small business.

Born in L.A., 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 going into private practice, where he defended ex-Sheriff Lee Baca on corruption charges.

Gascón and other progressives have portrayed Hochman as too close to law enforcement, questioning his ability to hold cops accountable when he’s taken in millions in campaign support from police unions.

Travion Smith, 29, volunteered as a phone banker for the Harris-Walz campaign. The L.A. resident said he was dismayed by the prospect of Hochman instituting “tough on crime” policies.

“I don’t believe that crime is running rampant, as they try to paint it on one side,” he said.

Smith, who grew up in a rural Alabama town of about 3,000 people and previously served as a military police officer, said he believes there are many good people in law enforcement. But he’s concerned a more hard-line approach by the D.A. will lead to mistreatment of citizens by problematic cops, and that those officers will enjoy greater impunity.

“People like me are going to be most impacted – people of color,” Smith, who is Black, said. “If those police feel emboldened by a D.A. who’s tough on crime, they’ll have no fear of… abusing people who look like me.”

Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, left, in 2022 with Gascón’s 2024 challenger, 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)

Hochman vastly outfundraised and outspent 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 L.A. that doesn’t match actual crime statistics or the reality on the ground.

Hochman’s explanations for how he would lower 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 district attorneys publicly took a stance against the incumbent.

On the final day of the campaign, Hochman stood in front of the Hall of Justice in downtown L.A., backed by dozens of prosecutors chanting his slogan: “Gascón must go.”

Asked before the polls had closed on Tuesday what he plans to do if Hochman wins, Gascón said he would continue to reside in L.A.

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