Alvin Bragg stands with his wife, Jamila Bragg, at an election night gathering as he speaks to supporters in New York, late Tuesday, June 22, 2021. | Craig Ruttle/AP Photo
NEW YORK — Former federal prosecutor Alvin Bragg opened up a lead in the Democratic primary for Manhattan district attorney, besting a field of seven other candidates vying to become the likely successor to outgoing DA Cy Vance.
Bragg, should he go on to win the general election in November, would become the first Black Manhattan district attorney and take over a high-profile investigation of former President Donald Trump’s businesses, as well as other major inquiries.
By early Wednesday morning, Bragg had 34 percent of the vote in the borough, compared to Tali Farhadian Weinstein's 30 percent, with nearly 90 percent of precincts reporting. Absentee ballots still have to be counted.
In an election-night speech, he stopped short of declaring victory but said he was confident in his lead. "We're going to do things a little different in Manhattan," Bragg said.
Bragg, a former deputy state attorney general and federal prosecutor, assembled the broadest coalition in the crowded race, winning over both progressive and moderate supporters with his biography and promises of reform. It was enough to blunt the impact of a flood of advertising by the other frontrunner in the race, Farhadian Weinstein.
The primary for district attorney, because it is a state office, did not use the ranked-choice voting system employed in primaries for mayor and other city offices. It also was not governed by the city’s stricter campaign finance laws.
Bragg, who is from Harlem, has spoken frequently of being stopped and frisked three times at gunpoint by the NYPD, incidents that shaped his views of the criminal justice system.
He has pushed for reducing incarceration and listed minor offenses he would decline to prosecute. But he stopped short of embracing stances of the furthest left candidates in the race, like slashing the DA’s office in half.
His closest competitor was Farhadian Weinstein, a former general counsel to the Brooklyn DA, who ran on a moderate platform and was buoyed by Wall Street money and an $8.2 million donation to her own campaign.
In an election night speech, she said the race remains too close to call. “I wish I could be here to tell you that this thing is over, but I think we all knew going into today that this election was not going to be decided tonight, and it has not been,” she said. “I’m asking for your patience. We have made an enduring promise to fight for safety and fairness.”
Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights attorney, was the favorite of the activist left, with a platform that called for sharply reducing prosecutions and slashing the top prosecutor’s budget by half. She was in third place Tuesday night with 11 percent of the vote.
Eliza Orlins, a public defender, embraced similar positions. Assemblymember Dan Quart also vowed to reduce prosecutions and sentences and stop prosecuting many offenses. They were both in single digits in the preliminary vote totals, as were former prosecutors Lucy Lang and Diana Florence, and Liz Crotty, who ran on the most traditional law and order platform.
Vance, who won the DA’s seat in 2009, announced in March that he would not seek re-election. By then, a large field of candidates was already vying to replace him.
Bragg was the first candidate to officially declare what was then expected to be a primary challenge against Vance, and was harshly critical of the DA’s record, saying he had a different standard of justice for the rich and powerful.
Bragg was endorsed by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, unions including the United Federation of Teachers and 1199SEIU, and a host of Harlem political figures. He also got the backing of the New York Times.
He was one of the lawyers representing the family of Eric Garner in a successful lawsuit seeking a judicial inquiry into his death, and Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, endorsed him.
The DA’s race grew contentious in its final stage.
Bragg, along with Quart, was hit by Farhadian Weinstein in ads that labeled them bad for victims of violence against women. The ad cited answers in a candidate questionnaire in which the two said they would drop some domestic violence charges, specifically those where both parties brought complaints against each other but neither wanted to proceed.
Bragg said the ads played into racist tropes about Black men being a danger to women.
Competitors also criticized Bragg for his record leading a unit in the AG’s office dedicated to investigating police killings of unarmed civilians, which secured no convictions.
Meanwhile, Farhadian Weinstein came under attack over a report in ProPublica, which obtained Farhadian Weinstein’s tax records and found that she and her husband paid virtually no federal taxes in several recent years. Rivals also hit her for pouring so much cash into the race.
And the left squabbled over the best path forward in the race. Zephyr Teachout, a law professor and former candidate for governor, urged progressives to unite behind Bragg. “It's down to Farhadian Weinstein and Bragg. A lock em prosecutor and a reformer who is committed to ending mass incarceration,” she said. “Please, vote for Bragg.”
But Cynthia Nixon, another left-leaning former gubernatorial challenger to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and an Aboushi supporter, disagreed. “Your point of view is myopic, privileged, and just plain wrong,” she said.
A Republican candidate, Thomas Kenniff, who was unopposed for that party’s nomination, will be on the ballot in November. But Bragg is heavily favored in overwhelmingly Democratic Manhattan.
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