Behind the Badge
Nathan Hochman is enjoying a stroll across Gloria Molina Grand Park on a September morning in the shadow of what he hopes will be his future office in the Hall of Justice in Downtown Los Angeles.
He has plenty of reasons to smile. Recent polls have put him 25 points ahead of incumbent George Gascón, building on a previous 20 point margin. He also enjoys near-unanimous support of a law enforcement community that is frustrated by the negative effects it perceives in the current DA’s progressive policies.
The swelter of the last heat wave of summer has broken and Hochman remarks on the beauty of the weather and the park.
“But you don’t want to come here at night,” he warns.
It is the “but” part that inspired him to run for District Attorney of Los Angeles County.
The city and county of 9.7 million are a California dream that draws more people than anywhere else in the United States … “but.”
For all Los Angeles’ attractions and attractiveness, those attributes pale against concerns of crime and safety, which are always at the top of priorities.
A Candidate Forum is scheduled for 6 p.m., Sunday, September 29 on ABC7 and its platforms. A debate is scheduled 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8 on KNX (97.1 FM and 1070 AM) and streamed on KNX and L.A. Times social platforms
Nathan Hochman, who is running for Los Angeles District Attorney, enjoys a large lead in race to unseat George Gascón.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and Republican turned Independent candidate who emerged as a well-funded newcomer on the local political scene, has made those concerns his central issue. Since the California primary, Hochman has secured basically every law and order endorsement imaginable, with support from 39 police and law enforcement unions from Azusa to Whittier. Add to that 14 current and former California DAs and the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles representing line prosecutors.
Where the voter falls on the political divide and between rose-tinted and dystopic narratives could decide the outcome.
As is often the case, perception is reality. And Angelenos are troubled, with 60% saying they feel less safe, according to a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies survey of likely voters in L.A. County.
Gascón came to the DA’s office as part of a progressive surge in the wake of the George Floyd killing, an invigorated Black Lives Matter movement, and the lingering effects of Covid-19. He was part of a national wave of reform-minded law enforcement leaders calling for discussions on equal and restorative justice and police accountability.
That was the goal. Instead, Gascón has since weathered two callback efforts and climbing unfavorable ratings.
Blanket edicts, coupled with a national post-pandemic crime spike, immediately set him at odds with deputy DAs and sowed distrust among much of the public.
“I looked at the prospect of having four more years of Gascón here and what he’s done to destroy public safety in this county,” said Hochman, a lifelong Angeleno. “I thought to myself, ‘I need to do something about him – fight for what you love.’”
Hochman was among 11 candidates seeking to supplant Gascón in the March 5 California statewide primary. Although he was the runner-up, with 16% to 25% for Gascón, the opposition quickly coalesced behind Hochman.
Progressive pushback
The progressive wave Gascón rode has since crashed and the riptide pullback has been massive. The defund the police movement morphed into refund the police and much of the discussion of reform has evaporated.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón faces a stiff challenge from Nathan Hochman in his quest for re-election. Photo courtesy District Attorney’s Office.
Even in Democratic strongholds such as L.A. and West Coast cities in general, the fallout has been profound. In Portland, Ore., liberal DA Mike Schmidt was defeated by challenger Nathan Vasquez, from Schmidt’s own office. San Francisco successfully recalled Gascón successor and Democrat Chesa Boudin, and in the East Bay, progressive DA Pamela Parker faces a November recall.
Across the country other liberal prosecutors have faced a similar backlash.
Kim Foxx of Chicago, Kim Gardner of St. Louis, Rachael Rollins of Boston, and Marilyn Mosby of Baltimore, all coincidentally barrier-breaking black women, were at the vanguard of the progressive prosecutor movement. All have either been forced out, resigned, or face steep odds against keeping their jobs.
Even hard-charging progressive Philadelphia County District Attorney Larry Krasner, elected in 2017 and again in 2021, has fought off Republican impeachment efforts and has not announced whether he will run for a third term.
Although a DA is technically nonpartisan, few really believe that. Gascón’s supporters say Hochman is a changeling, switching from Republican to Independent just in time for the election.
For his part, Hochman said he was a former Democrat and the DA was a Republican until 2011.
“I think when it comes to your safety, it turns out to be a seriously bipartisan issue.They say that criminals don’t ask for your party affiliation before they rob or kill you,” Hochman said. “People from across the political divides, their number one issue is safety. Politics is important, but their number one issue is safety.”
Regardless, Gascón has dominated in political party support, with endorsements from more than 20 Democratic groups.
Nathan Hochman, candidate for Los Angeles District Attorney in downtown Los Angeles, at Los Angeles Civic-Center Grand Park with LA City Hall behind him.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
Are we safer?
Although Gascón still prefaces every statement with vows to “make our neighborhoods safer,” which he says he has done. He also reiterates core values of his agenda, such as police accountability, reduction of racial disparities, and an end to mass-incarceration. This includes dismissing many lower-level crimes and eliminating cash bail requirements in certain cases.
The DA has walked back or amended some of his early blanket initiatives, such as removing sentence enhancements on all crimes. He also abandoned blanket commitments to stop prosecuting juveniles as adults and an end to seeking sentences of life without parole.
However, it has done little to assuage those who say he’s soft on crime.
The Hochman campaign has labeled Gascón’s policies as both procriminal and antivictim.
“It’s these extreme blanket policies that deservedly give (him) the label of procriminal. I don’t know if you would call it procrime, but it’s procriminal,” Hochman said.
Hochman takes it further.
“When Gascón says he cares about the disproportionate effect of the criminal justice system on people of color, he’s focused on criminals who are victimizing others, but he isn’t focused at all on victims,” whom, Hochman said, are disproportionately people of color
“I will be a champion for those victims and ensure that their rights are first and foremost recognized in the system,” Hochman said.
Gascón has fallen short in the “make neighborhoods safer” message, although the rise in violence and what’s responsible are debatable.
Hochman’s campaign has hammered on stats from the California Department of Justice that show violent crime reports are up 12%, 61,193-54,600, since Gascón took office.
However, from 2022-2023, the rise in violent crime was just 0.29%, 61,193-6,1016. Moreover, homicides only rose by 6 from 2020, less than 1%, 677-683, but are down from a spike, mirrored nationally, in 2021 of 841. Since then homicides are down, 18.8%. Note: because of small sample sizes, percentages of homicides tend to be more dramatic than many crimes.
Since 2020, rapes have dropped by 102 from 3,756 to 3,653, or 2.7%.
On the flip side, property crimes are up 20% in the same timeframe and have risen consistently each year. Shoplifting has more than doubled since 2020.
So more crime, yes; more violent, debatable.
Gascón says that in prosecuting more than 100,000 felony and violent cases, his office is “on par with the rate of prosecutions for the last 10 years.”
Nathan Hochman, who is running for Los Angeles District Attorney, in front of the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice where he hopes have his offices in November.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
Presenting their case
Hochman’s dire messages are finding soft earth.
Barring some sort of miracle October surprise or calamity, Hochman holds a seemingly unassailable 45% to 20%, lead, with 35% undecided as of mid-August, according to the Berkeley survey. Gascón is also saddled with a 35% strongly unfavorable rating.
The candidates will have last-ditch chances to make their cases in a Candidate Forum at 6 p.m., Sunday, September 29 on ABC7 and its platforms. A radio debate will be aired at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8 on KNX (97.1 FM and 1070 AM) and streamed on KNX and L.A. Times social platforms. The two held a debate on Zoom, although it suffered from a number of technical glitches.
Hochman says the race is much more than a battle between easy campaign slogans and claims of competing extremes.
“I come down in the middle and I call it the hard middle, because it requires work,” he said. “This is the position that is even-handed and balanced, as prosecutors have done for decades.”
Gascón has found fault with the second part of that statement.
“We have been doing business for decades the same way, and we have seen incarceration going to levels that (are) unparallel(ed),” Gascón said in a recent interview with KCRW. “And while we have some initial decreases, and then things became stable (and) we continue to incarcerate at rates that do not correspond to the level of crime.”
Hochman says his approach requires looking at cases holistically and individually with harsh punishments for the dangerous and violent perpetrators, and the potential lenient nonprison alternatives for nonviolent first-timers.
“A hard middle approach acknowledges the problems (that), in large part, have been built by George Gascóns pro-criminal policies, but offers a common sense, reasonable solution to these problems.”
He adds, “if at the end of the first four years of my administration, all I have succeeded in is filling the jails to the breaking breaking point. I have failed. The true measure of an effective criminal justice system is the system deterring people from committing crimes.”
As his campaign hits the homestretch with a sizable lead, Hochman could easily glide into election day.
However, he says he is going full speed and will continue as if down by 25 points right up to the Nov. 5 election. Hochman has raised a massive war chest to spend getting out his message, more than five-times than that of Gascón. He has also gained more than $1.8 million in support from independent groups.
Meanwhile, Gascón, who received $2.25 million in donations from Democratic mega-donor George Soros in 2020, according to the Los Angeles Times, has received no outside support this year, according to the California Globe.
In addition to spending on advertising, the Hochman candidate motor tour will continue to rack up frequent driver miles as he tries to reach every one of L.A.’s cities and unincorporated areas from Long Beach to Lancaster, Pomona to Pacific Palisades. Hochman lists off the communities and groups he has or will visited like some sort of digital rolodex: store owners in South L.A., Venice, West L.A., Rosemead, Arcadia to meet the Chinese-American community, and Glendale and Burbank to talk to Armenia-Americans.
“Gascón’s been given 3 1/2 years to run his social experiment,” Hochman said. “(People) tell me, and I agree, he has failed.”
