While she waited for the man she hopes will defeat Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón in November, Mary Klein slathered her face with a fresh coat of sunscreen. Klein — the survivor of a random attack along the Venice, Ca., canals — sat with other crime victims, chasing slivers of shade in a muggy downtown L.A. courtyard, chatting about one of California’s most hotly contested races, the Los Angeles Times reports. “People should vote to protect their family,” Klein said. “Safety is the preeminent issue for every single family and every single person — especially women and children. We’re intimidated on a daily basis.” Klein’s April 9 assault was brutal — and in the case of a second victim, 53-year-old Sarah Alden, deadly. The story of two women being raped and bludgeoned by a vagrant in the beachside enclave seemed to confirm many residents’ worst fears about growing lawlessness.
Gascón’s opponent, Nathan Hochman, is not a household name — something Klein and the others hoped to change when they agreed to appear with him in front of the TV cameras last month. They were joined by a familiar face in local politics, billionaire mall magnate Rick Caruso, who recently announced his endorsement of the defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. To Klein — and a vocal subset of voters — almost anyone would be preferable to Gascón. The incumbent’s progressive policies are far less popular now than when he swept into office on a reformist wave in 2020, and for many, crime feels out of control, even if the statistics in some categories suggest otherwise. Gascón won just 25% of the vote in the March primary — a weak showing for an incumbent — and a June poll by the firm Impact Research put his disapproval rating above 50% among likely voters. After recall attempts, more than a dozen lawsuits from inside his office and a vote of no confidence from the county deputy district attorneys association, the so-called godfather of progressive prosecutors now faces a serious challenge in the general election. Hochman says his “hard middle” crime-fighting philosophy will win over the silent, centrist majority he believes is waiting to carry him to victory. Speaking to Klein and the other victims who had come to support him, Hochman declared that his foe had enacted “extreme pro-criminal, anti-victim policies on his first day in office.”
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