Police money flows to Hochman in the DA race while support for Gascón dries up

When George Gascón unseated Jackie Lacey in 2020, it marked the end of the most expensive district attorney race in Los Angeles County history.

Four years later, the money is flowing again – just not to Gascón.

Gascón raised $13 million in 2020, with more than half coming from committees organized by wealthy San Francisco Bay Area residents spending money on criminal justice reform in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. Lacey hoarded $7 million, with 72% of that money coming from police union political committees.

These law enforcement factions have returned in 2024 to bolster Gascón's challenger, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman. But the source of progressive money that fueled Gascón's run for office in 2020 has dried up just when he needed it most for his faltering re-election bid.

According to an analysis conducted by The Times, Hochman and outside groups supporting him have raised nearly $10.4 million in campaign contributions as of Oct. 14, compared to $1.2 million for Gascón and his outside supporters.

The enormous financial advantage has allowed Hochman to launch a media campaign portraying Los Angeles as a crumbling, crime-ridden dystopia under Gascón's watch. Recent polls show Hochman leading among likely voters by as much as 30 percentage points.

Hochman has spent more than $1.1 million on television airtime and producing commercials, and an outside committee supporting the challenger has spent nearly $1.9 million on digital advertising on streaming platforms such as Hulu issued. The campaign's ads feature testimonials from crime victims and prosecutors expressing disdain for the incumbent's “restorative justice” agenda.

Read more: Your guide to the race for LA County District Attorney: Gascón vs. Hochman

Although Hochman's biggest outside supporters are law enforcement unions, he has also received support from the business community and real estate firms. Billionaire Rick Caruso — the former L.A. mayoral candidate and mall mogul — donated $250,000 to Hochman through a political action committee. The candidate says store owners and other retailers are being “killed” by Gascón's policies, which include not prosecuting drug possession or trespassing offenses.

“An unsustainable approach has emerged that looks at the business community and thinks, 'How are we going to continue to do business if we can't ensure the safety of our tenants, our renters, our customers… if we can?' “We can’t even protect ourselves,” Hochman said.

Gascón has not spent money on television advertising, instead focusing on mailers that can easily get lost in the flood of campaign flyers that clog Angelenos' mailboxes each election season. Even then, Hochman outspent the incumbent 11 to 1 on such campaign literature.

Some experts believe donors abandoned Gascón after his poor showing in the primary, finishing first but receiving only 25% of the statewide vote.

“These are sophisticated donors, and not only do they see the polls in this race, they saw what happened to Chesa Boudin in San Francisco,” said Roy Behr, a longtime Democratic campaign consultant in Los Angeles the recall of Gascón's progressive successor: “You look at all this information and say this is a lost cause.”

Of Gascón's top 10 outside donors in 2020, only four gave money to committees this year to support his re-election campaign. Liberal philanthropist George Soros poured $2.45 million into Gascón's candidacy in 2020 but offered nothing to the incumbent this cycle.

Records show Soros spent $3.7 million on federal elections this year, about a third of what he spent in 2020, with much of that money going to Vice President Kamala Harris' Victory Fund and the Democratic Party National Committee went. He has only contributed to one California candidate this cycle.

A Soros spokesman, Michael Vachon, said in a statement that the billionaire's focus “this cycle is on the presidential campaign.”

“This reflects the unprecedented risks facing the nation and should not be misconstrued as neglect by District Attorney Gascón or any other local leader committed to sensible, effective and humane approaches to public safety,” Vachon said.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, philanthropist Patty Quillin, spent a combined $2.2 million supporting Gascón in 2020, but donated just $9,000 this year. M. Quinn Delaney, founder of an Oakland-based advocacy group that promotes racial justice, has spent $109,000 promoting Gascón this cycle, making her his second-largest donor. But that's less than a fifth of the $553,000 she spent in 2020.

Read more: 'Not even close': Hochman's lead over Gascón grows to 30% in new DA's racial poll

Emails to representatives for Delaney, Hastings and Quillin were not returned.

Recent polls show voters are keenly concerned about public safety and favor tough measures like Proposition 36, when four years ago many of them took to the streets demanding police accountability.

“George Gascón hasn't changed at all in the last four years, but the world around him has changed dramatically and he has been either unable or unwilling to adapt to those changes,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican consultant California politician who teaches political communications at USC.

Gascón says its direct fundraising is on track to be similar to 2020 levels. But the tidal wave of money supporting Gascón from independent committees — refers to political action committees and organizations that can raise far more from individual donors than candidate-controlled committees because they don't have to abide by donation limits as long as they don't coordinate with candidates – is gone.

The district attorney also believes he has been hurt by Republican attacks nationally, noting that former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used his name on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the race is no longer on national Democrats' radar as it was in 2020, when Harris and others supported Gascón.

Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform, said Gascón's disappearing campaign funds are part of a broader national trend.

Rahman pointed to a Bridgespan Group study of philanthropic money spent annually on criminal justice reform — including nonprofits, political campaigns and election campaigns — that showed that spending peaked at about $416 million in 2019. reached $207 million and fell to $207 million in 2022, the last year recorded in the study.

“Democrats this cycle … are saving their dry powder, so to speak, for the presidential election or seeing how close the Senate races are,” Rahman said.

Hochman, meanwhile, has drawn on many of the same sources as Lacey in 2020. Nearly a quarter of his total funding from direct donations and outside committees, $2.5 million, comes from police unions that have long served as opponents to Gascón. His other key outside contributors include supporters of failed attempts to recall Gascón and Gov. Gavin Newsom, such as Republican megadonor Gerald Marcil. Real estate agents, investors, developers and property managers were also big supporters, with $2.4 million coming from donors in these industries.

Gascón has sought to use the donations to portray Hochman as a wealthy advocate of conservative ideas and a corrupt police officer, citing his time as a defense attorney working for convicted former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and “tax evader.”

Hochman, who is running as an independent, has largely eschewed partisan politics in the race, aside from deflecting Gascón's criticisms, and has focused most of his advertising spending on public safety.

In one ad, Hochman stands in front of a homeless camp on Spring Street in LA

“Homelessness is exploding downtown and throughout the county as a direct result of the failed social experiments introduced by Gascón,” Hochman says to the camera while standing just a block away from the district attorney’s office.

Read more: Gascón gave teenage murderer a second chance – now she is being charged again

Homelessness in LA County has declined slightly this year, falling 2.2% in the city compared to 2023, according to a study by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of people who are unsheltered or living outside, which Hochman referred to, has fallen by even larger percentages.

Criminal justice experts say it's difficult to draw a direct line between the district attorney's policies and homelessness; But Behr, the political consultant, says “voters don't know data” and are unlikely to fact-check the ads blasted at them on social media and television.

Gascón, on the other hand, simply does not have the resources to initiate counterprogramming.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.