Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner cruises to a third term in decisive win against Patrick Dugan

PHILADELPHIA — When Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced he was running for a third term in office, he said he was motivated in part by the people who have tried to stop him: the lawmakers who impeached him, the Democratic establishment who opposed him, and the president who has vilified him.

Krasner predicted Philly voters would stick with him. And they did.

On Tuesday, the Democratic incumbent district attorney easily fended off a second challenge by Republican nominee and former Municipal Court Judge Patrick Dugan, winning the general election and securing another four years in office, according to unofficial returns. The Associated Press called the race at 9:16 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after polls closed.

Krasner, 64, barely campaigned since besting Dugan in the May Democratic primary. He criticized Dugan after the former judge accepted the Republican nomination — the result of a successful write-in campaign by the city’s GOP — but otherwise largely ignored his opponent.

Dugan, 65, remained a registered Democrat but had the support of the Republican Party and an endorsement from the Forward Party, the third party founded by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. But Dugan struggled to fundraise, making it challenging to spread his message that he was a more pragmatic alternative to Krasner.

The win solidifies Krasner’s status as the leader of Philadelphia’s progressive movement who has had the most staying power, and as one of the key voices nationally among reformist prosecutors.

As other district attorneys of his political ilk have stepped down or been removed in recent years, Krasner has survived, doubling down on his message of wanting to end mass incarceration and weathering opposition from both sides of the political aisle.

Through it all, Krasner has positioned himself as the city’s chief antagonist of President Donald Trump, referring to the Republican administration as “fascist” and vowing to prosecute federal law enforcement agents if he believes they break the law in Philadelphia.

He is also now one of the longest-serving district attorneys in modern Philadelphia history. The only other top prosecutor who served more than two terms was Lynne Abraham, the tough-on-crime Democrat who was in the 1990s dubbed “the deadliest DA” because she so frequently sought the death penalty.

Krasner could not be more different.

A former civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, Krasner first ran for district attorney in 2017 as a political outsider and won a seven-way Democratic primary on a promise to bring progressive ideals to an office that was long seen as unfair toward the city’s Black and brown residents. He wants law enforcement to zero in on violent crime and implement programs to divert low-level offenders away from the criminal justice system.

The Rev. Donna Jones, a pastor of Cookman Beloved Community Baptist Church, said she believes Krasner’s relationship with the community and grassroots organizers helped propel him toward a third term.

“Larry’s experience as a community organizer has been one of his greatest strengths,” said Jones, who facilitates restorative justice work. “I can’t even say the man is particularly approachable. But he’s present.”

She added: “I don’t know if we can expect more from a politician with that level of authenticity. He is who he is. We know he is fierce. And we know where he stands.”

A third term to cap a tumultuous tenure

Toward the end of Krasner’s first term in 2020, crime rates spiked as they did across the country amid the pandemic, with shootings soaring to rates the city had never seen before.

Despite outwardly disagreeing with the city’s then-leadership about how to stem the violence and clashing with the police union, Krasner easily won reelection in 2021.

At the beginning of his second term, Krasner was impeached by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania House, whose leaders said the district attorney failed to adequately fight crime in the city. They cited statistics that showed that convictions for illegal gun possession fell sharply under Krasner’s leadership, despite increasing arrests for the crime.

The effort to remove Krasner from office was unsuccessful. The articles of impeachment expired at the end of the 2022 legislative session, and the state Supreme Court ruled last year that the effort was improper based on technical grounds.

By 2023, shootings in the city had plummeted. Today, the homicide rate remains at its lowest level in decades, a point Krasner often touches on when touting his office’s success stories.

He spent much of this year defending his two terms in office, saying four more years would represent continuity for a Philadelphia he claims is “safer and freer” than it was before him.

Carl Day, a North Philadelphia pastor who mentors and provides job training to young men ages 18 to 26, said Krasner faced unprecedented challenges amid the pandemic-era surge in gun violence, but said he’s maintained support because he collaborates well with community organizations.

Day pointed to how the District Attorney’s Office repurposes money seized from criminals to become micro-grants to local groups, including his own organization, Beat the Block, which received a $50,000 grant in April.

“If he got all the blame when crime was high, how do we not give him credit now that it’s down?” Day, a registered independent, said. “We’re seeing clearance rates rise, shootings fall, and gangs dismantled. What more do we want at this point?”

‘Always these campaigns to get rid of him’

Discontent with Krasner persists in some corners, with his chief opponents often saying that he has mismanaged his office and let dangerous people out on bail who have gone on to commit more crimes. Many veteran prosecutors have left the office.

And the opposition to him is in both parties, evidenced by the Democratic Party’s decision to not endorse his bid for reelection in the primary despite usually backing incumbents. Instead, the Democratic City Committee, led by longtime chair and former U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, allowed individual wards and their leaders to decide whether to endorse Krasner, Dugan, or neither.

That discord gave Dugan a fighting chance. He was also backed by the politically potent and deep-pocketed Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, which is led by Ryan Boyer, one of the most powerful labor figures in the state. The trades unions poured money into Dugan’s primary campaign.

Despite far out-fundraising Krasner and winning support from significant portions of the Democratic establishment, Dugan lost the primary by 28 percentage points, as voter turnout dipped to one of its lowest points in a decade.

The GOP did not field a candidate in the primary, instead encouraging voters to write in Dugan so that he could challenge Krasner again in the general election, a strategy Republicans are increasingly employing across the country. During the primary, Dugan, a lifelong Democrat, said he wouldn’t accept the GOP nomination.

But he changed his mind and announced in August that he’d run against Krasner again, describing himself as an “independent Democrat” running as the Republican nominee. Brady and Boyer said they were surprised, and said they would not support Dugan as a Republican.

Still, critiques of Krasner’s management of his office dogged him even in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election.

He faced particular scrutiny following the brutal killing of Kada Scott, a 23-year-old Mt. Airy resident whose death made national headlines. The man charged with kidnapping and murdering Scott, Keon King, had previously been arrested for allegedly assaulting and kidnapping an ex-girlfriend. But Krasner’s office withdrew the cases after the victim and witnesses didn’t appear in court.

Krasner acknowledged that it was a mistake to drop the charges in one of the incidents because prosecutors could have used video evidence to move forward with the case. Dugan slammed Krasner over the matter, calling him a “coconspirator” and saying his office’s errors were emblematic of systemic management problems in the DA’s office.

“I stepped down from the bench because I watched 70% of the cases fall apart in front of me,” Dugan said during a news conference Monday. “Many of them were victims, and I knew that once they left my courtroom, they were going to be victimized again.”

Some voters, including registered Democrats, cited the handling of the cases against King as a reason they voted for Dugan.

“They say crimes are down, but every day you turn on the radio and they tell you someone has died,” said Jennifer Maloney, 62, of Roxborough. “Many people who should have been kept in jail come out and commit more crimes, like the guy who killed Kada Scott.”

In South Philadelphia, Sue Henderson, 50, said the case was another example of Krasner shucking blame.

“He hasn’t owned up to anything,” she said.

Still, most observers believed that if Krasner could be reelected in 2021 amid an historic homicide rate, he’d likely win again with the rate at a decades-long low.

In the city’s Mt. Airy neighborhood on Tuesday, theater artist Lisa Burns, 70, said she voted for Krasner because he’s capable of improving Philadelphians’ lives at a time when, she said, federal policies are negatively impacting quality of life.

“It feels as equally important that he is given the opportunity to figure out and fight these impossible problems we have here,” Burns said, “because I think he can improve things.”

Elyse Rosen, 74, said she voted for Krasner because she feels safe in her Center City neighborhood.

“There’s always these campaigns to get rid of him,” she said of Krasner. “I’m always suspicious about that.”

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(Staff writers Jesse Bunch, Zoe Greenberg, Ximena Conde, and Michelle Myers contributed.)

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