With two days left before election day, a new poll shows Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón has cut slightly into challenger Nathan Hochman’s lead in the race for the incumbent’s seat.
But Gascón is still down 25 points in the closely watched contest. While that’s an improvement over the 30-point deficit he was staring down in the same poll on Oct. 8, it’s still no better than the 25-point margin he faced in the survey on Aug. 18.
If the election were held today, 50% of likely voters would vote for Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, and 25% would cast a ballot for Gascón, a former LAPD assistant chief who swept into office in 2020 on a progressive platform of criminal justice reform. That leaves 25% undecided, according to the poll of 1,205 likely L.A. County voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.
The poll comes near the end of a period of intense politicking by both candidates and their supporters. Since the last Berkeley-LA Times poll results were released on Oct. 8, Gascón and Hochman have held a series of campaign events across the county, addressed hundreds of voters, and faced off in a contentious debate.
Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll conducted online in English and Spanish between Oct. 22-29, said the slight narrowing of the gap between Gascón and Hochman shouldn’t offer much hope to the incumbent.
“It’s really not all that significant a change. The voters have pretty much stuck where they were before, with a quarter not really paying much attention,” he said.
Negative opinions on Hochman increased slightly since last month’s poll, which DiCamillo attributed partly to Hochman having the “scarlet letter” of being a former Republican in deep blue L.A. County, but his unfavorability still pales in comparison to the bad vibes voters seem to get from Gascón. Forty-nine percent of likely voters have a somewhat or strongly unfavorable view of Gascón, compared to just 15% for Hochman, who has also served as a former assistant U.S. attorney general and past president of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.
“It’s mostly a vote on Gascón,” DiCamillo said. “Hochman is the other candidate in this race and he’s in that fortunate position of running against an unpopular incumbent.”
About 70% of Gascón’s supporters said partisan affiliation played a role in their decision, and it’s possible undecided voters could trickle toward the incumbent given Democrats hold a massive advantage in voter registration in L.A. County.
Hochman is running as an independent and has worked to distance himself from his past GOP affiliation, saying he plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race.
Jamarah Hayner, Gascón’s chief campaign strategist, said the narrowing deficit is a sign that his campaign’s ground game is impacting the race.
“What we hear when we talk to voters are serious concerns about Hochman’s history with the Republican Party and the likelihood that he’ll roll back progress on issues like police accountability and wrongful convictions,” she said in a statement. “So every phone call and door knock matters as we get down to the wire.”
Hochman countered that the poll results are still indicative of an electorate frustrated with Gascón. A former two-term D.A. in San Francisco, Gascón has faced multiple lawsuits from his own staff in L.A. over implementation of his policies. He has also been forced to confront the perception that crime is rising — even as he points to statistics showing declines in some categories.
“The people of Los Angeles County are fed up with crime and ready for new leadership in the D.A.’s Office,” Hochman said in a statement. “I appreciate that voters want a prosecutor like myself with 34 years’ criminal justice experience who will base decisions on just the facts and law and not on a personal political agenda.”
Asked about a list of factors in the D.A.’s race, 54% of voters selected “ability to prosecute cases involving violent crimes” as influencing their decision; 48% cited “making reforms to the criminal justice system.”
But that hasn’t translated into similar levels of support for the incumbent, whom Hochman has repeatedly slammed as soft on crime. Gascón has countered by arguing that Hochman wants to return to mass incarceration and pull back on police reform and accountability.
Asked if Gascón should have any reason for hope on election day, DiCamillo said: “Unless the polling world is turned upside down, I would say no.”