DA candidate Dugan decries voter apathy, urges residents to go to the polls

With three weeks to go until Vote Day and nearly mail ballots already cast District Attorney candidate Pat Dugan pleaded with voters Tuesday to Get off your butts and vote as he attempts to achieve an upset win over incumbent DA Larry Krasner Dugan is a registered Democrat but is running as the Republican nominee after losing the primary to Krasner in May At a press conference outside City Hall he cast himself as a nonpartisan candidate looking for voters to set aside their party affiliations and their confusion about his and aid him for the good of the city You re a Republican Now I m not going to vote for you Wait you re a Democrat I m not going to vote for you he reported describing comments he s heard from voters I say hogwash to all those people who wear their jerseys - their political jerseys That s not what this is about This is bigger This race for District Attorney is bigger than the left the right the red the blue Dugan touted an endorsement from David Oh the Republican mayoral nominee in and a former At-Large councilmember He was also endorsed by the PA Forward Party a three-year-old group that describes itself as standing for nonpartisan leadership and a commitment to fairness according to party representative Robert Grabel He s focused on doing the job not on political labels Grabel noted Legislators should legislate Sheriffs should protect their communities Prosecutors should uphold justice not act as defense attorneys or political operatives Pat Dugan gets that and that s why we re standing with him Dugan also repeated the criticisms of Krasner he has made throughout the campaign accusing him of allowing accused people to be published and to commit more crimes of failing to crack down on retail theft and of not cooperating with other representatives in anti-crime strategizing Krasner declined to comment A quiet campaign Dugan a retired municipal judge lost the May Democratic primary to Krasner by a -point margin or almost votes There were no Republican candidates but Republicans eager to unseat Krasner organized a write-in campaign for Dugan and gave him about votes more than enough to make him their nominee After initially hedging Dugan accepted the nomination provoking angry condemnation from Krasner and other Democrats who accused him of lying when he previously stated he would not run as the Republican nominee In the past the local Democratic party leadership has repeatedly declined to endorse the outspokenly progressive Krasner but in August party chair Bob Brady disclosed I will do everything in my power to re-elect our Democratic nominee Larry Krasner The race has been fairly quiet since then Dugan posts a steady stream of videos on social media attacking Krasner and has held certain fundraisers but the DA has not visibly campaigned at all and it s not clear if he has any campaign staff In mid-September Dugan s campaign shared having only about in the bank and having raised in contributions since early June Krasner had cash on hand and had in recent days raised That s a far cry from the more than million they collectively pulled in before the primary In addition three unusually contentious state Supreme Court retention races have garnered substantial attention while the DA contest has gotten minimal press coverage over the past sparse months While the two men participated in a debate and several forums during the primary campaign no such meetings have been held or even scheduled since then An anti-party party Grabel announced the PA Forward Party is building up its infrastructure and helping Dugan but did not specify how Dugan s campaign has not released any contributions from the party and state campaign finance records do not show that it has contributed to any candidates Across the state the party has endorsed three Democratic and three Republican candidates for various positions Grabel revealed They include Bucks County Democrat Danny Ceisler in his challenge to Republican incumbent Sheriff Fred Harran and Delaware County Republican Tommy Feldman for county controller over Democrat Louis Rosenthal In Adams County the party endorsed judicial candidate Paul Royer a Republican who won the Democratic primary through write-in votes and it supports litigation attempting to institute open primaries in Pennsylvania in which any voter could vote in primaries regardless of party affiliation Grabel disclosed We re proud of candidates who bridge divides and earn help across party lines High-profile high-profile races like this shouldn t be decided by closed primaries he commented Every voter deserves a voice regardless of registration Dugan stated he hoped the Forward Party endorsement would underline his effort to appeal to voters across party lines He argued that various residents of both major parties agree with him that Krasner has been soft on crime including several elected Democrats who won t admit publicly that they re voting for him but that he requirements more of them to overcome their apathy and get to the polls on Polling Day Only of those who registered went on to vote in the May primary he pointed out Do the math real quick stayed home Nobody votes in this city Get off your couch and vote folks That s the only way you re going to make a change in this city is let your voice be heard he explained I need you the people sitting out there on the couch to stop complaining and vote Interest in the state Supreme Court retention races could boost voter turnout for the Nov general voting process but it s unclear by how much In the last DA contest in turnout inched up only slightly between the primary and general from a little over to not quite a difference of specific voters Somewhat similarly to this year the electoral process four years ago included a contested state Supreme Court race which drove get-out-the-vote efforts However Dugan will have to do substantially better than he did in the primary to win For example if both he and Krasner get all the same votes he would then need roughly another to come out on top About people voted in this year s May primary while voted in the November general electoral process when Krasner was last reelected As of Monday the city s Board of Elections had received mail ballots for next month s electoral contest including selected flawed ballots that need to be fixed before they can be counted a spokesperson declared The post DA candidate Dugan decries voter apathy urges residents to go to the polls appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY