Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer
As Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner campaigned for his third term in office, he didn’t spend much time outlining what he’d do differently with four more years as the city’s top prosecutor — and his plans remained a work in progress after he cemented his win on Tuesday. Krasner, the two-term progressive prosecutor, delivered brief remarks at a news conference outside the district attorney’s office Wednesday morning, about 12 hours after he won reelection in a landslide victory over Republican nominee Patrick Dugan, a former Municipal Court judge. But Krasner did not outline his goals for his new term, which will begin in January, saying he’d reveal more before he is inaugurated and asking Philadelphians to contact his office with their own ideas for improving the city’s criminal justice system. Krasner did not take questions, and he didn’t utter Dugan’s name. On Tuesday night, Dugan lashed out at Krasner, calling him “despicable, uncaring, [and] heartless” and saying the prosecutor’s progressive policies had wrought “death and carnage” in the city. » READ MORE: Philly DA Larry Krasner has all but secured a third term. What will he do with it? Instead of acknowledging his opponent, Krasner reveled in his win, walking up to a line of news cameras while playing the song, “Blow the Whistle,” on his cell phone. The song begins: I go on and on, can’t understand how I last so long. He then doubled down on his campaign strategy and focused his comments on President Donald Trump and the national political environment. Krasner said the result in his race, coupled with signs of an energized Democratic electorate across the nation Tuesday, was evidence that voters have “had enough” of the Trump administration. “Can you hear me, Donald Trump in Washington D.C.?” Krasner asked. “How’s your midterms looking?” The win over Dugan appeared to be decisive, according to unofficial returns. Krasner led Dugan by about 50 percentage points as of Wednesday morning, with about 97% of the vote counted. That’s a significantly higher margin than in the spring Democratic primary, when both candidates ran as Democrats and Krasner won by about 28 percentage points. Dugan later became the Republican nominee through a write-in campaign organized by the city’s Republican party. Krasner performed well Tuesday in the city’s Democratic strongholds in North and West Philadelphia, and Dugan captured more votes in the far Northeast, Bridesburg, and parts of South Philly. However, there are eight wards that Dugan won in the primary election that Krasner flipped back in the general. All of them are in the Lower Northeast. The biggest swing was in the 7th Ward, a heavily Latino neighborhood that includes parts of Fairhill and Kensington, where Krasner’s share of the vote grew from 46% in the primary to 86% in the general. Krasner said that while Democrats performed well across the country, his win was evidence that the party must “invite in” more reform-minded prosecutors, even if they don’t have the support of traditionally powerful political institutions. He noted that his opponents have often raised more money than he, and that he has never had the backing of the Democratic City Committee when he ran in primaries. “There’s a new politics,” he said. “It’s called just get the votes. It’s called just do the job.”
