Philly DA Larry Krasner defeats primary challenger Patrick Dugan, positioning him for a third term
Krasner is well-positioned to win the November general election because no Republican has filed to run.
Over the last eight years, Philadelphians have seen the rate of shootings and homicides soar to unthinkable heights, they’ve seen the violence decrease at a dizzying pace, and through it all, the city’s Democratic voters have stood by District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Krasner, a leader of the national progressive prosecutor movement, is poised to win a third term after prevailing over a well-funded challenge from former Municipal Court Judge Patrick F. Dugan in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, according to an Associated Press projection. With a majority of precincts reporting late Tuesday night, Krasner held a commanding lead of about 20 percentage points.
No Republican has filed to run, likely clearing the path for Krasner to secure a new four-year term in November. (The Philadelphia GOP on Tuesday encouraged its voters to write in Dugan for district attorney in an effort to let the Democratic runner-up run as the Republican nominee in the general election, but Dugan’s campaign has said he would decline such an opportunity.)
The victory demonstrates Krasner’s staying power in a Philadelphia political arena rife with opponents of his progressive agenda, and it represents a win for the movement to elect reform-minded prosecutors that has, in recent years, suffered setbacks in other cities.
“This has been a people’s campaign,” Krasner said in a victory speech at his campaign’s watch party at the Graham Building near City Hall. “You cannot just buy elections.”
Krasner included several apparent jabs at his opponent, who benefited from significant campaign spending by the building trades unions, real estate professionals, and other deep-pocketed interests.
“In a democracy,” Krasner said, “I would like to think, and I would like to hope, that it is the work that you do, and it is the results that you get, and it’s the way that you do the job that mean a little bit more than whether somebody’s got more money for television.”
Krasner, 64, is a former civil rights attorney who said on the campaign trail that his eight years as the city’s top prosecutor have made Philadelphia “safer and freer.” He touted that the city’s gun violence rate is at a historic low, declining precipitously from record highs just three years ago.
A political lone wolf, he ran for his third term following years of fierce opposition from Harrisburg Republicans, who led a 2022 impeachment drive and unsuccessfully sought to remove him from office. He also clashed with Philadelphia’s Democratic Party, which broke with tradition by declining to endorse Krasner or his challenger in a snub to the incumbent.
A combative figure with a brash public speaking style, Krasner campaigned on a promise to be Philadelphia’s antidote to Republican President Donald Trump, fashioning himself as a “democracy advocate” in addition to local prosecutor and often hurling insults toward Washington.
The incumbent district attorney faced a well-funded challenger in Dugan, 64, a longtime Municipal Court judge who portrayed Krasner as soft on crime and framed himself as a more moderate alternative. Dugan pledged to take a tougher approach to addressing quality-of-life crimes like retail theft, but also said he would retain some of Krasner’s popular reforms.
He said often that Krasner does not “play well in the sandbox” with other elected officials and law enforcement heads, saying he would foster better relationships with partner agencies.
Dugan did not speak to supporters gathered for his results watch party after the race was called. He issued a statement conceding the race late Tuesday night.
“Although we came up short on Election Day, I’m proud of what we accomplished, and while I may not be the next district attorney, I will never stop fighting for the values we carried through this campaign,” Dugan said. “And to Larry Krasner, I offer my congratulations. For the sake of our neighborhoods, our families, and the soul of this city — I truly hope he succeeds.”
On the campaign trail, Krasner cast his opponent as a return to the past, saying Dugan would make the nation’s fourth-largest criminal justice system one that overvalues incarceration and unfairly targets people who are Black, brown, or poor.
He highlighted his staunch opposition to the death penalty and his goal of abolishing cash bail.
“We cannot have a district attorney whose ambition is more important than the truth, whose politics are more important than justice,” Krasner said during a news conference in February. “We cannot go back like that.”
Dugan strongly pushed back against those characterizations, saying that as a judge, he oversaw courts that aimed to divert low-level offenders out of the criminal justice system. Dugan also said he would not seek the death penalty, except potentially in extreme cases such as mass shootings, and does not believe that people should be jailed for low-level crimes simply because they can’t pay low bail.
“I’m a diehard Democrat who believes in second chances, and I’ve done it,” he said during a community forum in March.
Aside from a handful of community events during which Krasner and Dugan spoke side-by-side to voters, the campaign was a more subdued affair than past races for district attorney. Krasner won his first term in office after topping a field of seven Democrats seeking the nomination, and he won reelection four years ago following an emotionally charged race amid a spike in homicides.
This campaign did not generate the same amount of attention. The candidates did not participate in a televised debate after being unable to agree on a time and format. Despite rumors that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk might fund an advertising campaign to oppose Krasner, no such effort ever materialized.
And the city’s police union — which four years ago vehemently opposed Krasner and poured money into trying to sink his reelection bid — did not endorse either candidate this year. The union, which represents thousands of current and retired police officers, said neither candidate asked for its backing.
Off-year municipal elections tend to be low-turnout affairs, and Tuesday’s primaries appeared to be no exception. Poll workers reported subdued traffic for in-person voting, and mail ballots were trickling in at a slower rate than recent elections in the lead-up to Tuesday.
Dugan likely needed a spark in interest in the race to give Krasner a more serious challenge. That never materialized.
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Still, the ex-judge and Army veteran was seen as a potentially formidable opponent. He crucially had the support of the politically powerful Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella organization of unions, and he raised much more money than Krasner.
Just before election day, Krasner had a slight fundraising advantage over Dugan when it came to donors who live in the city. But Dugan racked up contributions from suburban donors and the trades unions.
Dugan also benefited from TV ads funded by the Concerned Citizens of Philadelphia, an anti-Krasner super PAC funded primarily by donors from the real estate industry and construction trades unions.
Although GOP voters could not vote for him in the Democratic primary, Dugan was also the favorite candidate of the Republican City Committee, which organized a last-minute write-in campaign aimed at making him the GOP nominee if he lost to Krasner.
It will take days to determine whether Dugan won the GOP nomination. But based on early results, which show the number of write-in votes but not the candidates who received them, Philly GOP chair Vince Fenerty said he is confident the party succeeded in securing the minimum 1,000 write-in votes needed to nominate Dugan. As of late Tuesday night, more than 6,500 Republicans cast write-in votes for district attorney, far more than they did for other offices where the party failed to field a candidate.
Dugan campaign manager Dan Kalai previously said the former judge was committed to declining the GOP nomination if he received it. There’s no indication Dugan’s position has changed — but Fenerty said he’s hopeful Dugan will reconsider.
“We’re hoping that Judge Dugan will look at the results and see how they are and make a decision to run against Larry Krasner again in the fall,” Fenerty said. “We have to let him have a few moments to let him digest what has happened today. and hopefully tomorrow he’ll make a fair and rational decision.”
With the Democratic City Committee staying out of the race, Krasner and Dugan competed to win endorsements from neighborhood-based Democratic ward leaders across the city. Dugan won over dozens of the city’s 69 Democratic ward leaders, a significant boon for a challenger. But his campaign at one point caused confusion by listing endorsements from wards that hadn’t yet decided which candidate to back or that were actually with Krasner.
Much of Dugan’s support from ward leaders and elected officials came from his base in relatively conservative Northeast Philadelphia. City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, State Sen. Tina Tartaglione, and several state representatives from the Northeast backed his run.
Krasner, meanwhile, had strong support among Black ward leaders and politicians and benefited from progressive activists and left-leaning unions’ loyalty to him — a combination of constituencies that, when combined by a single candidate, has proven nearly impossible to beat in recent Philadelphia elections.
Krasner’s backers included prominent Black clergy members, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, and State Sen. Sharif Street, the head of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
“I think African American voters will overwhelmingly break for Larry, progressive voters,” Street, a North Philadelphia Democrat, said as results trickled in at Krasner’s election night event.
Dugan, he said, is a “good man” but added that “it was a bad race in that he shouldn’t have chosen this race.” Street noted recent drop in gun violence and said he believed Dugan “never a case made” for why Krasner didn’t deserve a third term.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who has in the past endorsed Krasner, this year sought to stay out of the race, making no public comments about it in the lead-up to the election. But Parker is also the Democratic leader of the 50th Ward, a political powerhouse in Northwest Philadelphia that boasts some of the strongest turnout rates in the city, and her ward endorsed Krasner.
An Inquirer analysis of early results showed that Krasner dominated in Northwest and West Philadelphia, while Dugan did best in the Far Northeast.
If Krasner ultimately prevails in the fall, he will take office for his third term in January, becoming only the second Philadelphia district attorney in nearly 100 years to serve more than two terms.
The other was Lynne Abraham, the tough-on-crime prosecutor who served four full terms and one partial term from 1991 to 2010 and was once dubbed the “deadliest DA” because she frequently sought the death penalty.
Tuesday’s election emphasized that Philadelphia voters have largely turned the page on the law-and-order approach to criminal justice that Abraham championed.
William Zike voted for Krasner at Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church, one of the busiest polling places in voter-rich Mt. Airy.
“Progressive candidates get pinned as the vote that increases crime, but I think he has better policies to treat crime that are more humane,” Zike said. “He can see that people could use help instead of getting punished.”
Maria Rossman, who voted for Krasner at Roxborough Memorial Hospital, said she chose the incumbent because he wasn’t afraid to stand up to Trump and because of his character.
“He is fair,” Rossman said. “Krasner doesn’t just throw the book at people for the sake of throwing the book. He looks at the bigger picture and tries to get all people a fair chance.”
Staff writer Michelle Myers and graphics editor John Duchneskie contributed to this article.