Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón faced a crowded field of opponents in Tuesday’s primary election, with 11 contenders running against him.
Initial returns showed Gascón leading the field with more than 22% of the total vote with 37% of votes in as of 9 p.m., narrowly ahead of former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman. But even before the polls closed, Gascón was confident he had an advantage over his challengers.
“We’ve worked really hard during this primary. This has been very grassroots, we've had a lot of people that work on this race,” Gascón told KNX News’ Nataly Tavidian. “The numbers appear to support that we’re going to prevail and go into a general election.”
Gascón, who won the election in 2020 as a progressive reformer, has survived two failed recall attempts, the first of which was launched less than 100 days after he took office. He’s been criticized as “soft on crime” by all of his challengers, who blame him for a nonexistent surge in crime.
“Fearmongering has worked for years, and there has not been a shortage of fearmongering during this campaign,” Gascón said. “The numbers are what they are. The reality is, crime is going down.”
He pointed to Gallup polls showing that people nationwide feel less safe every year, even as crime is decreasing. Looking ahead to the general election, Gascón said he hopes the fearmongering will give way to more substantive conversations about policy.
“I was very disappointed in the primaries that we had so many people running but there was no one that really wanted to address issues other than just hyperbole and repeating misinformation, so I’m hoping that as we get into a general election actually there will be room for that true conversation that actually talks about different ways of addressing the problems,” he said.
In lieu of an election night party, Gascón said he would watch the results at home with his family.
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