First, Gascón: He has approval ratings that would alarm any elected leader. One recent poll found that just 24% of Los Angeles County voters approved of his performance in office.
What’s worse is that 51% disapproved. In politics, when 51% of the people who elected you decide you’re doing a bad job, it’s usually time to start working on a new resume.
Still, Gascón is the incumbent, and he can count on a chunk of the electorate, presumably somewhere close to the 24% who approve of the job he’s doing. If this were an old-style primary or a smaller field, he might be done at this point. But facing a bunch of contenders and needing only to make the top two, Gascón seems well-positioned to make the runoff.
It’s after that when things would get difficult for him.
As for the rest of the field:
Jonathan Hatami is a deputy district attorney whose campaign is centered around his dislike for Gascón and his determination to reinstate sentencing enhancements that Gascón discarded. Hatami argues that doing so will protect public safety and respect victims of crime.
That’s an appealing message to some voters, and Hatami has vigorously pursued it, amassing support from conservatives and those who champion a tough-on-crime world view.
It may be enough to land him in the No. 2 spot, but it seems unlikely to bring him to office in a very liberal county where support for criminal justice reform runs strong, even as Gascón has disappointed many reform advocates.
Tellingly, Hatami’s major endorsements have come from outside Los Angeles, including the DAs of Riverside and Kern counties.
Eric Siddall is another deputy district attorney. He shares Hatami’s antagonism toward their boss, but his message is muddier. He wants to put “cop killers” and sexual predators behind bars – but who doesn’t? He has the support of the union that represents deputy DAs, so he can’t be counted out, but he hasn’t done much with his campaign other than snipe at his opponents.
He’s a longshot.
Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, ran as a Republican for attorney general of California two years ago, but is seeking office this time as an independent. That takes footwork, and Hochman hasn’t shown much.
Instead, he fulminates about how Los Angeles has become “dystopian” and promises to roll back Gascón’s policies.
Dystopian? Really? In the city of Los Angeles (the District Attorney is responsible for the whole county, but the city is the biggest single piece of it), violent crime last year declined 3.2% and property crimes increased 3.5%. That’s not great, but it’s not Gotham, either.
Hochman has raised and spent a ton of money and enjoys some support, though he’s fighting Hatami for the law-and-order sliver of the electorate. He could slip into the runoff, but he would be an easy target for Gascón in November. A strong showing by Hochman in the primary is Gascón’s best bet for re-election.
Hochman is to Gascon what Steve Garvey is to Adam Schiff in the California Senate race: a political gift.
Jeff Chemerinsky, also a former federal prosecutor, brings both a commitment to tough law enforcement and an appreciation for thoughtful reform strategies. He has a record of locking up criminals but also opposes the death penalty, mass incarceration and the policies that drive it. His supporters include police reform advocates who have lost confidence in Gascón – among them, civil rights attorney Connie Rice, former Police Commission President Gerry Chaleff and former city controller Wendy Greuel.
The challenge for Chemerinsky has been the one that faces any candidate who attempts to be reasonable and smart and still be in politics: He is arguing for nuance. He does not portray Los Angeles as dystopian or reject every one of Gascón’s policies, but he contends that he would do a better job executing a reform agenda and would temper it with deeper appreciation for public safety.
Chemerinsky is discovering that it’s hard to speak in measured tones when everyone around you is shouting, but he is the greatest threat to Gascón’s re-election and would be a strong favorite to defeat him in November – if he makes the runoff.
Underlying all of this is a fundamental question, one too deep for the candidates to have grappled with during their many, often exasperating, debates: Is Los Angeles in a state of crisis over public safety?
If the electorate thinks it is, then Hochman or Hatami will benefit politically. But just last year, the Los Angeles mayoral race tested the same question. Businessman Rick Caruso campaigned against City Hall and argued that only a clean sweep would give Los Angeles a chance to recover from its purported depths of corruption and despair. Voters thought otherwise, decisively casting their support for Karen Bass, herself an outsider to city government but one who projected greater confidence in the city and its capacity for progressive reform.
The current crime numbers argue in favor of that view, as do other facts on the ground. Homelessness, for instance, is a tragedy and a blight, but there’s no evidence that voters want to return to the days of punishing police strategies or lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key prosecutions.
And yes, crime is frightening, but some perspective is in order: 327 people were murdered in Los Angeles last year, and every one of those is a deep source of sadness and loss. But that’s down 17% from the year before, and it pales next to the crime that once afflicted this area.
In 1992, 1,092 people were killed in this same city. That’s dystopian.
Voters in L.A. want to be safe, as they do anywhere. They also see homelessness as a human crisis and addiction as a health issue. They want police and prosecutors who share those views.
Those are the views that brought Gascón to office, and they have not gone away, even if he has let down some of those who backed him.
If the choice in November is Gascón or a law-and-order conservative, Hatami or Hochman, Gascón will likely win. If it’s Gascón or a moderate reformer, Chemerinsky or possibly Siddall, Gascón will probably be out and a new era will begin. The results next week will set the table for those options.
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
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