REAL-TIME RESULTS: Los Angeles District Attorney Lacey Holds On

LOS ANGELES, CA — The polls are now closed, and Los Angeles County is anticipating results for the District Attorney's race that came to a wild and emotional end this week. It's been a heated contest between District Attorney Jackie Lacey and her top challenger George Gascon, the former San Francisco district attorney.

Lacey may yet avoid a runoff race. With ballots still to be counted, she maintained a razor-thin majority lead in the race for re-election.

Lacey has had the fight of her political career on her hands Tuesday as she squared off against challenger criticising her progressive bonafides and her handling of police shootings. By Wednesday morning, with 99% of precincts in, Lacey earned 50.69% of the vote. She needs to maintain a majority in order to avoid a runoff election. It may be days before the votes are fully tallied and certified.

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Lacey was forced to hold a press conference Monday to explain why her husband brandished a gun at Black Lives Matters protesters outside her home.

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She explained the hardship and the weight of the criticism she has faces as the county's top prosecutors. Facing challengers for the first time since she was elected in 2012, she had the fight of her political career on her hands — two challengers criticising her progressive bonafides and her handling of police shootings.

Gascon, the former San Francisco district attorney racked up endorsements from the Los Angeles Times, Sen. Kamala Harris, and the Los Angeles and California Democratic parties. Lacey faced candidates positioning themselves to her left in liberal Los Angeles. In addition to Gascon, former public defender Rachel Rossi also ran. Both challengers vowed to implement reforms to end mass incarceration.

Rossi focused on reforming L.A. jails and how probation. According to KTLA, she was the first former public defender to run for L.A. County DA, and she won the support of the Westside Young Democrats and the Latino Coalition of Los Angeles.

Though Lacey may not have faced challengers before, she's survived challenges, namely a recall effort in 2017. The county's first female and African American DA, she has also won a mass of endorsements from labor unions and elected officials including Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In endorsing Gascon, the Times editorial board wrote: "In 2012, Jackie Lacey defeated a traditional tough-on-crime prosecutor to become Los Angeles County district attorney. Voters seemed to appreciate her cautious openness to new thinking, and indeed some of her policies -- especially her program to divert some mentally ill people from prosecution to treatment -- were refreshingly forward-looking. She was reelected in 2016 without opposition."

But in the intervening years, added The Times, many voters here and elsewhere in California have moved further. Lacey's caution, once comforting, now sometimes looks more like resistance to change, according to The Times.

She opposed Proposition 47, a landmark reform measure to convert simple possession of small amounts of drugs and some petty thefts from felonies to misdemeanors. When it passed, she was slow to embrace the changes it brought, and could not adequately report how the decrease in felony prosecutions affected her office's budget and workload.

She initially opposed any change to the money bail system that keeps poor people in jail before trial while freeing those who can buy their way out; and when she later became more open to bail reform, she used her considerable clout to block an early legislative version of a money-bail ban. She continues to support the death penalty, despite moral and practical overwhelming arguments against it. Although she merits respect for launching a mental health diversion program, its progress has been somewhat plodding.

She was increasingly targeted by activists with Black Lives Matter. On Monday, she held a press conference after her husband was seen on video pointing a gun at protesters outside their home in Granada Hills.

"Up until now, I have not really wanted to share with you what it's been like, but I think it's time, because there's a bigger purpose here," Lacey said. "As district attorney of L.A. County, I have received threats, some of them death threats. I have been followed, photographed while with my family, confronted at an art museum, confronted at fundraisers and even at endorsement interviews I've had people crash them and videotape me. And all of this is because I chose to do my job. I'm a human being. I'm a public servant. I've dedicated my life to the profession that stands up for victims of violent crime and I'm not ashamed of that.

"... Believe it or not the Laceys are private people," she said. "We expect people (to) exercise their First Amendment rights, but our home is our sanctuary, and I do not believe it is fair or right for protesters to show up at the homes of people who dedicate their lives to public service."

Lacey's challengers benefited from activists' disenchantment with her.

Gascon, a former Los Angeles police officer and assistant chief who later became police chief in Mesa, Arizona, and San Francisco, and then San Francisco district attorney, was a more progressive prosecutor, the Times concluded. "He co-wrote Proposition 47, essentially eliminated money bail in his jurisdiction, and authored legislation and instituted policies aimed at reducing the outsize role of poverty and race in criminal justice. He is one of two candidates challenging Lacey.

"Los Angeles County is the nation's largest prosecutorial jurisdiction and its district attorney should be a leader and a trendsetter in the administration of justice."

City News Service contributed to this report.