Voters in Northern Virginia on Tuesday will sentence three progressive prosecutors in Democratic primaries as part of the next two years of mass district attorney elections in some of the nation’s most populous counties. Become.

For years, district attorney elections have been characterized by a dreary, uncompetitive atmosphere, usually favoring hard-core incumbents. However, the past decade has seen a surge in criminal justice reform as activists and donors targeted criminal justice reform as a key venue for achieving their reform goals, and voters in major metropolitan areas were enthusiastic about messages such as desegregation. Waves of aspiring district attorneys have taken over government offices across the country. These include disparities in the justice system and the use of new conversion programs as an alternative to prison sentences for some offenders.

Now three progressive challengers elected in 2019 while promising to reform the federal attorneys’ offices of Arlington, Loudoun, and Fairfax counties, Virginia, are facing Democratic opponents four years later. , taking issue with how the firm operates and how high-profile cases are handled. He also fulfilled his election promises.

Together, these counties cover nearly two million inhabitants. Fairfax Federal Attorney Steve Descano confronts trial attorney Ed Nuttall, who has made a name for himself as a police officer’s representative in major cases. Loudon’s Buta Biberaj is in a dispute with attorney and former public defender Elizabeth Lancaster. And Arlington’s Parisa Deghani-Tufte is facing Josh Kutcher, a former underling in her own agency. All three incumbents were elected in 2019 with the backing of Democratic mega-donor George Soros’ Justice and Public Safety PAC. The party spent millions of dollars helping Descano and Degani Tufte beat former incumbents in the Democratic primary and beat Biberaj in a tight general election.

Degani-Tufti said the question for the 2023 race is whether the changes she’s been working on over the past four years will continue. She touted that her office eliminated cash bail and utilized drug courts and behavioral health records to deal with certain defendants outside the prison system.

“Looking back at 2019, I’ve been working on very specific issues. I made very specific promises,” Degani Tufte said in an interview. She later added: “What we are doing is already paying off, but we need to continue for much longer.”

Catcher, a former prosecutor in Degani Tufte’s office and the former federal prosecutor she defeated in 2019, said she largely agrees with Degani Tufte’s motivations for criminal justice reform. However, it was not enough to achieve her goal, which she claimed was not running the Arlington office well.

“My commitment to my literary community is ‘real reform, real justice.’ And I don’t think we’re doing either right now,” Catcher said.

In fact, both campaigns are running as “reformers” (although there is some debate as to who they really are). It shows what many voters in the nation’s largest Democratic-leaning jurisdiction want from prosecutors amid decades of change.

“If someone asks me if I’m a candidate for Law and Order, I say, no, I’m not,” Catcher said. “As a reformer, I can speak fluently about it.”

He criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican lawmakers for attacking progressive prosecutors over the recent rise in crime across the country, saying they were “very It reduces the complexity to a simplistic position,” he said.

Degani Tufte claimed to be the true reformer in the Arlington election, saying Kutcher’s campaign rhetoric was “a realization that the words are very compelling.”

While some of the first wave of progressive prosecutors are seeking re-election, others are still breaking new ground. Last month, Stephen Zappala, the longtime district attorney for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, said: lost the Democratic primary To Mr. Matt Dugan, who was the county’s chief public defender. Mr. Dugan criticized Mr. Zappala as an incumbent who pushed for lip service reform but has done little in his decades-long tenure in the Pittsburgh area.

“The majority of the people we see in the criminal justice system are low-level nonviolent offenders for three main reasons: substance abuse, untreated mental health problems, and poverty.” Dugan said in an interview before his first victory. He added that the system “does a very good job of cycling people through thousands of times a year without addressing the core issue, but then when people relapse, the system is startled and apathetic.” ‘behave,’ he added.

Mr. Zappala did not respond to requests for an interview.

Dugan’s campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from the Soros-funded Justice and Public Safety PAC.Democratic mega-donor In recent years, millions of dollars have been poured into district attorney elections across the country.backing progressive candidates and often propelling them to victory.

Zappala attacked Dugan in the final weeks of the primary for taking money from Soros’ group, but Dugan won the Democratic nomination by 11 percentage points anyway.

After some twists and turns, Mr. Zappala won the vacant Republican primary by writing ballots. Zappala and Dugan, He recently quit his job to focus on the election.will face off again in the Allegheny County general election in November.

The contest will lead to a busy 2024 for the District Attorney election. The presidential election and the upcoming trial of Donald Trump in federal court will dominate the political news next year. But next year, prosecutors from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin will be on the ballot. Election data collected by the University of North Carolina’s Prosecution and Political Projecthand” and bolt magazine.

Among them are the largest counties where the progressive prosecution movement has so far failed to gain a foothold. Phoenix-based Maricopa County, Arizona, is the fourth largest county in the United States and has had a narrowly elected Republican county attorney in recent years. rice field. left. Republican incumbent Rachel Mitchell is set to expire next year.

The only three counties in the United States larger than Maricopa could see active races for Democratic-controlled prosecutors’ offices in 2024, and all counties face increased attention and conflict as interest in district attorneys rises. , symbolizing growing controversy. campaign.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon has faced recall attempts and opposition from some career prosecutors and law enforcement officials since taking office in 2020. Cook County, Illinois state attorney Kim Fox said he is seeking re-election in 2024. She will not run for re-election next year., established a public prosecutor’s office in Chicago. And Harris County, Texas District Attorney Kim Ogg has already selected a primary challenger from among the former employees.

Whitney Times, chairman of the Soros-funded Justice and Public Safety PAC, declined to mention future races the group might target. But he said spending on district attorney elections would continue.

“We will continue to successfully support candidates who otherwise would not have the resources to be elected,” said Thymas.