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Nathan Hochman

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Nathan Hochman is the Los Angeles County District Attorney in California. He assumed office on December 2, 2024. His current term ends on December 4, 2028.

Hochman ran for election for Los Angeles County District Attorney in California. He won in the general election on November 5, 2024.

Hochman completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Nathan Hochman was born in Los Angeles, California. Hochman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and a Juris Doctor degree at Stanford Law School. His career experience includes working as a defense attorney, civil litigator, and appellate counsel.[1][2]

2024 battleground election

See also: Los Angeles County District Attorney election, 2024

Ballotpedia identified the March 5, 2024, nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles County District Attorney as a battleground race. The summary below is from our coverage of this election, found here.

Nathan Hochman defeated incumbent George Gascón in the general election for Los Angeles County district attorney on November 5, 2024.[3] Hochman received 61.5% of the vote to Gascón's 38.5%.

Gascón and Hochman were the top two finishers in the nonpartisan primary, receiving 24.4% and 16.4% of the vote, respectively. The two advanced to a general election because neither won more than 50% of the vote.

Before the election, LAist wrote the race was "expected to be closely watched across the country as a barometer of how the public is feeling about criminal justice reforms amid an increase in property crime. Property crime is up 17.4% in the city of L.A. so far this year compared to two years ago...Violent crime is down 1.3% year to date from two years ago."[4]

Although the election was nonpartisan, Gascón was a registered Democrat, and Hochman was an independent.[5][6]

Gascón was elected in 2020 on a platform of not seeking the death penalty, limiting the imposition of cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, and "stopping the practice of imposing excessive sentences."[7][8] Gascón said his policies made county residents safer and he would keep them in place if re-elected. He said, "The reality is that having thoughtful policies that hold people accountable, as we have, sending people to prison when they need to be locked up, but recognizing that prison cannot be the only one answer is what public safety is all about."[9] Gascón previously served eight years as San Francisco district attorney. He earlier served as chief of police in San Francisco and in Mesa, Arizona.[10]

Hochman was, at the time of the election, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor.[11] Hochman said Gascón put his policies ahead of public safety. Hochman said he would prioritize public safety and victims' rights over reducing the length of sentences.[12][13] Hochman said Gascón was responsible for "nine of the most pro-criminal blanket policies in DA history."[14] Hochman said his public and private legal experience would help him change the direction of the district attorney's office.[11] Hochman said he would avoid Gascón's policies centered on decarceration in favor of what he described as "the hard middle, which means you look at each individual case, the defendant, the crime committed, and the impact on the victim to determine who the true threats to our safety are, who needs to be behind bars."[14]

Before the election, local political observers said Hochman, who ran for attorney general as a Republican in 2022, faced a disadvantage in Los Angeles County, where Democrats had been favored in recent elections.[15] The county voted for President Joe Biden (D) over former President Donald Trump (R) 71%–27% in 2020 and for Rob Bonta (D) over Hochman 67%–33% in the 2022 attorney general election.[16][17] At the time of the election, the last Republican elected Los Angeles County district attorney was Steve Cooley (R) in 2008. Hochman said after the primary that "three-quarters of Angelenos rejected George Gascón and said enough is enough of playing politics with our communities’ safety...In the general election, I look forward to unifying all those who want to restore safety in their communities, in their streets, parks, subways and neighborhoods."[18]

Elections

2024

See also: Municipal elections in Los Angeles County, California (2024)

General election

General election for Los Angeles County District Attorney

Nathan Hochman defeated incumbent George Gascón in the general election for Los Angeles County District Attorney on November 5, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Nathan Hochman
Nathan Hochman (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
59.9
 
1,983,802
Image of George Gascón
George Gascón (Nonpartisan)
 
40.1
 
1,328,710

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 3,312,512
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles County District Attorney

The following candidates ran in the primary for Los Angeles County District Attorney on March 5, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of George Gascón
George Gascón (Nonpartisan)
 
25.2
 
370,654
✔
Image of Nathan Hochman
Nathan Hochman (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
15.9
 
234,509
Image of Jonathan Hatami
Jonathan Hatami (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
13.2
 
194,755
Image of Debra Archuleta
Debra Archuleta (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
8.5
 
125,306
Image of Jeff Chemerinsky
Jeff Chemerinsky (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
7.9
 
116,064
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Maria Ramirez (Nonpartisan)
 
7.1
 
105,088
Image of John McKinney
John McKinney (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
6.0
 
87,903
Image of Eric Siddall
Eric Siddall (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
5.6
 
82,993
Image of David Sherman Milton
David Sherman Milton (Nonpartisan)
 
4.3
 
63,044
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Craig Mitchell (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
3.0
 
44,326
Image of Lloyd Masson
Lloyd Masson (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
 
2.0
 
29,306
Image of Daniel Kapelovitz
Daniel Kapelovitz (Nonpartisan)
 
1.2
 
17,622

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 1,471,570
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Polls

See also: Ballotpedia's approach to covering polls

We provide results for polls that are included in polling aggregation from FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, when available. No polls were available for this election. To notify us of polls published in this election, please email us.

Election campaign finance

Candidates in this election submitted campaign finance reports to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Click here to access those reports.

Satellite spending

See also: Satellite spending

Satellite spending describes political spending not controlled by candidates or their campaigns; that is, any political expenditures made by groups or individuals that are not directly affiliated with a candidate. This includes spending by political party committees, super PACs, trade associations, and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.[19][20][21]

If available, this section includes links to online resources tracking satellite spending in this election. To notify us of a resource to add, email us.

Endorsements

To view Hochman's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Hochman in this election.

2022

See also: California Attorney General election, 2022

General election

General election for Attorney General of California

Incumbent Rob Bonta defeated Nathan Hochman in the general election for Attorney General of California on November 8, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Rob Bonta
Rob Bonta (D)
 
59.1
 
6,339,441
Image of Nathan Hochman
Nathan Hochman (R)
 
40.9
 
4,390,428

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 10,729,869
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Attorney General of California

Incumbent Rob Bonta and Nathan Hochman defeated Eric Early, Anne Marie Schubert, and Daniel Kapelovitz in the primary for Attorney General of California on June 7, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Rob Bonta
Rob Bonta (D)
 
54.3
 
3,756,486
✔
Image of Nathan Hochman
Nathan Hochman (R)
 
18.2
 
1,256,465
Image of Eric Early
Eric Early (R)
 
16.5
 
1,142,747
Image of Anne Marie Schubert
Anne Marie Schubert (Independent) Candidate Connection
 
7.8
 
539,746
Image of Daniel Kapelovitz
Daniel Kapelovitz (G)
 
3.2
 
219,912

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 6,915,356
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Nathan Hochman completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Hochman's responses.

Expand all | Collapse all

I am a lifelong Angelino, who was born, grew up, educated, married, and raised 3 children– all in Los Angeles County. I have chosen to stay and fight for the LA County community I love. Our current DA has instituted policies and taken actions that have made us less safe, destroyed morale in the DA’s office, endangered the DA’s partnership with law enforcement, and damaged the DA’s Office’s credibility with victims and the public. I am running to remove politics from prosecutorial decisions and restore independence, honesty, and integrity to the DA’s Office to prevent crime, protect public safety, and ensure justice is served to all LA County residents. Unlike the current DA who has never prosecuted or defended a single criminal case in his entire life, I have prosecuted over 100 cases as a federal prosecutor. I have also defended over 200 criminal cases. In addition, I was presidentially nominated, unanimously Senate confirmed as the U.S. Assistant Attorney General running the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Tax Division; served as the President of the L.A. City Ethics Commission; led two major international law firms’ government investigations practices; and co-founded the L.A. Sheriff’s Foundation. With over 34 years’ criminal justice experience on all sides of the aisle and proven leadership experience with government, private practice, and community organizations, I can restore public safety, the partnership with law enforcement, and the DA’s Office’s reputation from Day One.
  • Crime & Public Safety: Under DA Gascón, Los Angeles County has become a haven for criminals. When the DA won’t do his job, criminals take note, and the law-abiding citizens, typically those in more vulnerable and minority communities, suffer the most. I want to restore accountability, justice, safety, and security in LA County, and restore the people’s trust in the DA’s office to get the job done. I will reverse Gascon’s pro-criminal blanket policies with the “hard middle” approach. This approach focuses on individualized analyses of cases to determine appropriate action, given the evidence and law. I would also reverse policies prohibiting prosecutors from accompanying victims at parole hearings.
  • Fentanyl: Fentanyl, a drug 50 times stronger than heroin, is responsible for over half of drug overdose deaths in LA County and is murdering hundreds of children a year. It kills indiscriminately across political, geographic, racial, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic lines. Gascón has failed to treat fentanyl poisoners, including serial offenders, as murderers or even adopt the “Alexandra warning” to be given to convicted fentanyl dealers that if they do the crime again and someone dies, they may be charged with murder. On Day One, I will launch a massive local-state-federal task force to combat fentanyl poisoners and simultaneously launch a huge educational effort targeted to children and their parents on the perils of fentanyl.
  • Homelessness: The homelessness crisis is one of the most visible failures of leadership. The DA’s Office needs to change the trajectory of addressing LA’s homeless challenges by partnering with law enforcement, municipal agencies, the CARE courts, non-profit organizations, as well as local stakeholders and community leaders, to work on effective programs to help break the spiraling downward cycle of the homeless, over 70% of whom suffer from serious mental illness, substance abuse disorder, or both.
I’m passionate about any policy that supports and strengthens the safety of Los Angeles County residents. I have spent over 34 years in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor and defense attorney because I believe that that system works best when each side is zealously and capably arguing for its position, leaving the facts to be determined by a jury or judge. I am a passionate believer in substantive and procedural justice, which has been missing under DA Gascon because when the DA brings a political, pro-criminal agenda to the role of prosecutor, the system fails to ensure fairness for all parties, particularly the victims and the public. As District Attorney, I will ensure that substantive and procedural justice are achieved.
Leaders, especially those in the justice system, need to be independent and collaborative. I will be an independent voice in the DA’s office, always putting public safety and the rule of law over politics and personal agendas. DA Gascon has shown what happens when you substitute a political ideology or party affiliation for independence, deciding upfront that there are certain crimes and criminals that will not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I will be guided by the evidence and the law as my North Stars in carrying out my mission as District Attorney.

My collaborative philosophy is summed up in the saying that if you don’t care who gets the credit, you can do great things in this world. I am all about the mission of justice and protecting the residents of this county; anyone who wants to contribute productively to that mission from any corner of the Office or outside the Office is warmly invited to the table. Since I don’t fear competing ideas nor do I believe I have a monopoly on the best policies or procedures, I welcome input from those with the best and brightest ideas available.
As a former federal prosecutor, U.S. Assistant Attorney General, and LA City Ethics Commission President, I am the only candidate in the field with over 34 years of criminal justice experience (federal prosecutor of violent gang members, narcotics traffickers, money launderers, corrupt public officials, and environmental criminals; defense attorney; judge’s law clerk; and victims’ rights advocate) and proven leadership record (led major U.S. Dept of Justice Division after Presidential nomination and unanimous U.S. Senate confirmation with $100 million budget and 350 attorneys; headed two large law firms’ govt investigations practices; and presided over L.A. City Ethics Commission). As a result, I will be able to lead with experience, competence, and integrity on Day 1 in the LA County District Attorney’s office, the largest local prosecuting agency in the U.S. with an over $460 million budget and over 2100 employees.

Moreover, I am the only candidate who has represented law enforcement officers in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings as well as the only candidate who prosecuted law enforcement officers who blatantly violated the law (narcotics deputies in the 1990s who stole from drug dealers). I am the only candidate who is a co-founder of the L.A. Sheriff’s Foundation, which was started to support the LASD during the summer of 2020 when law enforcement was being attacked. We have subsequently raised over $1 million for everything from a communications crisis center, flak jackets, and ATVs to financial help for the 76 cadets who were run over by a car during their training run. These roles give me credibility when I say that I will always have law enforcement’s back but also will not tolerate anyone, including law enforcement officers, who crosses the criminal line.

These experiences and qualities are what put me above the rest of the field to be a successful District Attorney.
The first big historical event I remember was Neil Armstrong becoming the first person to step on the moon on July 20, 1969. I was five years old at the time and sat glued in front of the TV as my parents explained to me how mind-blowing it was that we were able to fly someone in a rocket from the Earth to the moon. I remember the feeling of pride in that accomplishment, being forever interested in science and technology and how we were able to pull off that feat, and being somewhat concerned about how we were going to get him back from the moon.
I believe that a District Attorney should make decisions based on an individual case-by-case analysis that focuses on the defendant and his/her background, the crime committed, and the impact on the victim to incarcerate true threats to our safety but also to allow those who aren’t (a first-time, non-violent offender) the chance to pay their debt to society in some other way, like community service or a diversion program. I call this the “hard middle” approach since it requires significant experience and judgment to make these difficult decisions (I bring over 34 years’ criminal justice experience to the job) and rejects the extreme blanket policies of mass incarceration on one end and DA George Gascon’s blanket de-incarceration policy on the other end of the pendulum swing.
“57.3% of statistics are made up.”
Steve Cooley, former three-term LA County District Attorney

Debra Wong Yang, United States Attorney (2002-2006)
Nicola Hanna, United States Attorney (2018-2021)
Terree Bowers, United States Attorney (1992-1994)
Sandra Brown, United States Attorney (2017-2018)
Robert Bonner, United States Attorney (1984-1989)
Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes
Joyce Dudley, former DA from Santa Barbara County
Les Bider, former Chair, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles
Stanley Gold, former Chair, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

Irwin Field, former Chair, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign ads


January 22, 2024
April 10, 2023

View more ads here:


2022

Nathan Hochman did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

See also

2024 Elections

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External links

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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ U.S. Department of Justice, "Former Assistant Attorney General - Nathan J. Hochman," December 3, 2020
    2. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 5, 2024
    3. ↑ NBC News, "L.A. County district attorney, one of the most progressive in the country, loses re-election," November 6, 2024
    4. ↑ LAist, "9 Candidates For LA County DA Will Debate Tonight. The Current DA Won't Be One Of Them," October 18, 2023
    5. ↑ Los Angeles Magazine, "Former Federal Prosecutor Jeff Chemerinsky Enters Race for District Attorney," September 12, 2023
    6. ↑ George Gascón campaign website, "Home page," accessed January 12, 2024
    7. ↑ National Public Radio, "George Gascón Implements Sweeping Changes To Los Angeles District Attorney's Office," December 8, 2020
    8. ↑ Los Angeles County District Attorney, "Special Directive 20-14," December 7, 2020
    9. ↑ ABC 7, "LA County race for district attorney: Gascón faces off with candidates in Democratic debate," November 16, 2023
    10. ↑ George Gascòn campaign website, "Meet George," accessed January 12, 2024
    11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Nathan Hochman campaign website, "Home page," accessed January 12, 2024
    12. ↑ YouTube, "Nathan Hochman for LA County District Attorney - Fixing LA's Broken Scales of Justice," April 10, 2023
    13. ↑ Nathan Hochman campaign website, "Blueprint for Justice," accessed January 12, 2024
    14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Audacy, "L.A. DA candidate calls Gascón’s policies ‘pro-criminal’," March 12, 2024
    15. ↑ CALMatters, "Assessing the path to office for each contender seeking Los Angeles district attorney," February 29, 2024
    16. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Los Angeles County General Election Results - November 3, 2020," accessed March 20, 2024
    17. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Los Angeles County General Election Results - November 8, 2022," accessed March 20, 2024
    18. ↑ Los Angeles Daily News, "Election 2024: Gascón leads crowded DA race; Hochman in second in semi-final results," March 6, 2024
    19. ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Outside Spending," accessed December 12, 2021
    20. ↑ OpenSecrets.org, "Total Outside Spending by Election Cycle, All Groups," accessed December 12, 2021
    21. ↑ National Review.com, "Why the Media Hate Super PACs," December 12, 2021
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