Far-left Democrat incumbent District Attorney Larry Krasner in Philadelphia won the district attorney primary Tuesday evening despite the uptick in violence this past year in his city due to lax law enforcement he’s fomented.
Krasner beat out Carlos Vega, a Democrat supported by law enforcement. Krasner won by 30 points and is thought of as a favorite to win reelection in November in the Democrat stronghold over Republican attorney Charles Peruto Jr. Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 5 fleshed out a lot of money to try and get Krasner out in the primary.
“There is a clear link between Krasner’s election and an uptick in violent crime which has caused certain Philadelphia neighborhoods to descend into shooting galleries reminiscent of the late ’80s as far as crime rates,” Albert Eisenberg, a Philadelphia-based political consultant with knowledge of the Vega campaign, told The Federalist. “Our police chief, a progressive black woman, has said as much — the police are arresting people and confiscating guns in record numbers, yet successful prosecutions of violent crimes and gun charges are plummeting.”
Philadelphia has been marred by a drastic increase in violent crime. Over the past year, there were more than 2,200 shootings, 500 of which ended up being fatal. The National Guard was summoned in October in response to rioting. Back in March, Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney and city officials acknowledged Philadelphia is on pace to have record crime rates.
“It makes me absolutely sick to know that so many Philadelphians have suffered these preventable deaths,” Kenney had said at a press conference. “It’s painfully clear that we must take new approaches.”
Krasner first took office in 2017. He received more than $1.5 million from billionaire leftist George Soros, and his campaign and the Soros Political Action Committee spent close to $2 million. Last summer, Soros dumped money into Black Lives Matter and similar groups aimed at pushing Marxist “racial equity.” The district attorney has sued the police department in Philadelphia 75 times and peddled in “systemic racism” terminology to describe law enforcement.
“In 2020, when Philadelphia was ravished by radical left organizations like Black Lives Matter and criminal opportunists who rioted, looted, and torched police cars, District Attorney Larry Krasner failed to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Montgomery County Republican Commissioner Joe Gale, who is running for governor in the state, told The Federalist previously.
Kenney slashed police budgets last summer as well and got rid of a proposal to provide more funding to police. “We think we can police better and make sure we put the resources in the departments that can affect change and make the situation in our neighborhoods better,” he said at the time. “We want to approach this open-mindedly, but some of these things have to happen.”
Former prosecutors in the city have long been critical of the district attorney. In 2017, 11 individuals who used to work in the district attorney’s office penned a letter referring to Krasner as “a radical candidate with no experience prosecuting crime.”
In 2020, 86 percent of murder victims in the city were black. Krasner prosecuted a mere 49 percent of illegal gun arrests, according to city data. Protect Our Police, a PAC, fought hard to try and get Krasner to lose in the primary. The group made informative videos and took in donations.
“I believe there is a winning coalition to be found in cities among disaffected, mostly working and middle-class people, against policies that are branded as progressive but result in a huge uptick in violent crime,” Eisenberg added.
153 ex-prosecutors signed a letter last month pleading with voters to vote for Vega. The prosecutors said they are “not defined by any political ideology but by a desire to see a better, fairer, safer city, and we hope you agree that it is time for a change.” An estimated 36 of the signees stopped working at the district attorney’s office under Krasner’s leadership, including Vega. Some were terminated by him during his first week.
Peruto ran unopposed in the GOP primary. A Republican has not been in office since 1991.
