Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took a big step closer to reelection on Tuesday night with a strong showing against his sole challenger in the Democratic primary.
Photo by Max Parrott
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took a big step closer to reelection on Tuesday night with a strong showing against his sole challenger in the Democratic primary.
Bragg won over 70% of the vote, according to the NYC Board of Elections’ (BOE) preliminary results, with 94% of scanners reported in the unofficial election night figures.
A first term that thrust him into the spotlight for his high-profile prosecution of President Donald Trump and reformist policies reinforced Bragg’s popularity with the Democratic electorate of Manhattan.
“The voters have spoken again, and they’ve spoken quite loudly,” Bragg said at his election party at the Harlem Tavern on 116th Street. “That’s a loud voice in favor of us continuing to make Manhattan safer and our system fairer at the same time.”
Bragg racked up strong margins against Patrick Timmins, a newcomer to politics and former Assistant District Attorney who had more recently been working as a civil litigator for a part-time adjunct law professor. Timmins had attacked Bragg on the list of low-level crimes he instructed his staff not to prosecute as part of a “day one memo” that he sent out when he entered office.
The set of policies became the target of a wave of blowback from tough-on-crime critics, but Bragg bolstered the steadily declining rates of shootings and murders over the past three years in the period leading up to the primary.
“If you look back at this short span of time, he’s got deliverable,” said Assembly Member Al Taylor, who was celebrating at Bragg’s election party. “Right now in any part of the world, people want safety, they want to feel secure… but we can’t just incarcerate the world, so I like his preventive work he’s doing — trying to bring that number down.”
→ Continue reading at amNY
