Hochman Up By 25 Points Over Gascon In Los Angeles County DA Race

A new Los Angeles Times/UC Berkeley IGS poll released over the weekend found that former Assistant U.S.  Attorney General for the Tax Division and current General Counsel for Ross LLP Nathan Hochman continues to have a commanding lead by 25 points over current Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.

Both Hochman and Gascon have been battling it out for the LA County DA race since March, when Gascon managed to get just over 25% of the vote in the primary, while Hochman barely beat out Assistant DA Jonathan Hatami 16% to 13% of the vote, or roughly 36,000 votes. However, the negative backlash over Gascon’s reform-minded policies, which included reduced sentencing, death penalty opposition, and general discontent from many, quickly swung towards Hochman’s favor. With so many opposed to Gascon, Hochman quickly jumped into first in the race following the primary.

The first polls in April found Hochman at 44%, up by 21 points over Gascon at 23%, and 33% undecided. With high crime concerns and a growing number victims and family members of victims directly blaming Gascon for crimes, as well as the loss of loved ones because of his policies, things only grew worse for Gascon over the summer. Huge numbers of endorsements, many of whom previously backed Democratic candidates, suddenly began migrating towards Hochman. A UC Berkeley poll in August found that his lead was still just as high, coming in at 45%, with Gascon only getting 20%. 35% in the poll remained undecided.

A USC/CSU poll released at the beginning of October found that Gascon still wasn’t doing very well. He was now 24 points behind, with 44% in favor of Hochman, 20% Gascon and around 33% undecided. Nonetheless, Gascon made an all out blitz in the last month before the election. He managed to out-fundraise Hochman, despite not having George Soros donate anything, leading to ads galore coming out in LA County. This included ads pointing to Hochman as a former Republican, trying to consolidate party unity around Gascon. He also tried to appeal to voters by backing the push to free the Menendez Brothers.

25 points ahead

However, all of that effort led to no rise in the polls for Gascon. If anything, that push backfired. According to the weekend poll, Hochman now has a near-majority of 50% of voters, with 25% backing Gascon and another 25% undecided. When compared to the August and October polls, Hochman has been grabbing more undecided voters than Gascon. The poll also noted how unfavorable voters view them both, with Hochman only having a 15% unfavorability score, with Gascon getting a 49%. “It’s mostly a vote on Gascon. Hochman is the other candidate in this race and he’s in that fortunate position of running against an unpopular incumbent.”

Other polling experts tended to agree.

“Gascon gave it one final go,” said LA County pollster Manny Rodriguez to the Globe on Monday. “You know, he was saying that Hochman used to be a Republican, he would halt progress, he would jail more people. But voters were obviously not falling for that. Look at those numbers. Even if you had the worst case margin of error, it is still an incredible lead to have over an incumbent DA.

“He also didn’t win anybody over who wasn’t previously going to vote for him. That’s the problem. Republicans were never going to vote for Gascon outside of accidently voting for him. Independents were not going to vote him. And Democrats have gone either way. That last one was the big one, because that should be a huge group of automatic supporter for any left-leaning politician in LA County. But things got that bad. That’s that 49% unfavorability score.

“Gascon has no real hope tomorrow. And yeah, as soon as polls close and initial results come up, Hochman will likely be projected the winner on the first result sweep. Gascon has probably had his concession speech ready since April.”

Neither Hochman or Gascon had a statement or comment on the latest poll as of Monday afternoon.