Nathan Hochman, the former federal prosecutor and Assistant U.S. Attorney General who is running to unseat D.A. George Gascon and restore public safety in L.A. County, has a massive fundraising lead over Gascon, according to newly filed campaign finance disclosure statements.
Hochman raised an impressive $1.56 million between Feb. 18 and June 30, and his campaign had more than $1.1 million cash on hand as of June 30, public records show. Gascon raised a paltry $166,000 during the same period and had just $46,000 in the bank. Hochman received donations from nearly five times as many individual donors as Gascon.
The fundraising success will enable Hochman to spend significantly on television and digital advertising in the weeks before the Nov. 5 election, giving him a key opportunity to educate voters about how Gascon’s pro-criminal policies have made all of L.A. County less safe. Both violent and property crime have increased every year that Gascon has been in office, according to countywide crime statistics released by the California Department of Justice.
“These fundraising numbers are not surprising because George Gascon is the most unpopular District Attorney in modern history,” Hochman said. “I have spent the past year traveling throughout this great county and I hear the same thing everywhere I go: The public feels less safe than they did before Gascon was elected and they want change. On Nov. 5, we all have an opportunity to put an end to a dark chapter of L.A. County history and send a message to law enforcement, crime victims and criminals – we will no longer tolerate crime that has eroded our quality of life for the past four years.”
Not surprisingly, Gascon received contributions from more deputy public defenders and criminal defense attorneys than from the prosecutors he supervises. In fact, the only deputy district attorney to contribute to Gascon’s campaign was Diana Teran, his No. 3 in command, who is currently awaiting trial on 11 felony charges for misusing confidential law enforcement records. She gave him $500.
Hochman, meanwhile, received strong support from a bipartisan coalition of supporters from throughout Los Angeles County. His fundraising team includes Stephanie Daily Smith, a longtime Democratic fundraiser whose clients include the Democratic National Committee, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) and a majority of California statewide elected officials.
Even before his fundraising failure, Gascon faced extremely long odds in the Nov. 5 election. He received just 25% of the vote in the March 5 primary, the worst performance by an incumbent D.A. in L.A. County history. Recent polling shows Hochman with a massive 50% to 25% lead over Gascon, with voters expressing deep dissatisfaction with the current D.A.’s policies that benefit criminals, at the expense of victims.
While enacting smart and necessary criminal justice reforms, Hochman has vowed to do away with Gascon’s extreme, pro-criminal policies on his first day in office. Those policies include restricting the use of sentencing enhancements for those who use guns, or are part of gangs, during the commission of violent crimes and Gascon’s indefensible prohibition against prosecutors representing crime victims at parole hearings.
Source: Press Release