In an interview with ABC7 on Monday, incumbent Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón,
, said “We’re in a much better place today than we were four years ago.”
Gascón faces a record number of challengers — 11 — in the primary next month as he seeks a second term. Gascón’s challengers have run campaigns against the incumbent rather than against one another, and the large field could help Gascón.
Why so many candidates? A USC-Dornsife poll conducted last month found 51% of voters disapprove of the job Gascón is doing.
“We’re dealing with violence, and in fact violence has come down which clearly indicates that the work were doing doesn’t cause crime to go up,” said Gascón. “We’re also addressing the issues of over-incarceration, issues of equity within the system. That creates a certain level of anxiety for some people. And for some people, it creates an opportunity.”
According to Gascón, all of his challengers want to take us backwards, but he believes the reforms he’s brought to L.A. County will result in crime continuing to go down after it went up during the pandemic. Gascón admits he got off to a rough start.