Alvin L. Bragg, the incumbent Manhattan district attorney and the first prosecutor to convict a president, won re-election on Tuesday, securing a second term running one of the largest prosecutor’s offices in the nation.
Mr. Bragg faced a Republican and an independent. The other candidates tried to make the campaign a referendum on his record during his first term, arguing to voters that crime had increased and that the office had pulled back on prosecutions under Mr. Bragg’s tenure.
However, Manhattanites gave a landslide victory to Mr. Bragg, who won his re-election bid with The Associated Press calling the election in his favor within an hour of the polls closing. Mr. Bragg was leading with about three-quarters of the vote.
As news of his victory flashed onto the screen at a party at the Harlem Tavern, the crowd erupted into a chorus of cheers and applause.
“I love democracy,” Mr. Bragg told the crowd, adding that voters “spoke loudly.”
“They spoke specifically about having safety and fairness together,” Mr. Bragg said.
Mr. Bragg, 52, has held the job since 2022, when he became only the fourth district attorney in 80 years and the first Black person to lead the office. He also became the first prosecutor to win the conviction of a president when Donald J. Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies last year, a case Mr. Bragg has rarely discussed.
In his first race, Mr. Bragg had a relatively low profile — he was a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and had worked at the state attorney general’s office, where he led a unit responsible for investigating police killings of unarmed civilians.
On the campaign trail, he often recounted his story of growing up in Harlem when residents faced both high rates of crime and harassment from the police. He had been personally affected by gun violence, he said, pledging to balance public safety with fairness for all defendants.
He survived a contentious eight-way Democratic primary and won handily in the general election. Mr. Bragg was among a wave of progressive prosecutors who promised to reshape criminal justice with a focus on alternatives to prosecution. And after taking office, he quickly became one of the nation’s most recognizable prosecutors.
In his first year, he created a division called Pathways, which identifies defendants who would benefit from mental health or substance abuse programs more than incarceration. He also established another division to focus on sexual violence and child abuse.
During his campaign this year, Mr. Bragg pointed to drops in murders and shootings since he took office and promised to intensify similar efforts in a new term.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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