Larry Krasner was the unlikeliest of candidates for district attorney in Philadelphia. That turned out to be just the ticket for victory in the unlikeliest of Democratic primary elections yesterday, reports Philly.com. Progressive voters demanded reform of an office currently held by a man under federal indictment. The race was nationalized by a growing sense of resistance among many Democrats to President Trump’s every move. Krasner, 56, easily defeated six other contenders in a campaign that went from low-key to high-profile last month with a $1.45 million investment from billionaire George Soros in a pro-Krasner independent political action committee.
Krasner held nearly an 18-point lead on his closest Democratic rival. Krasner will face in the Nov. 7 general election Beth Grossman, the lone Republican in her party’s primary. Krasner, a defense attorney best known for taking on civil rights cases for Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia members, AIDS activists and protesters arrested at political conventions, has never served a day as a prosecutor. That became his pitch: that he was more likely to reform the District Attorney’s Office because he had no ties to it, unlike most of the other Democrats in the race. Krasner pulled the field to the left, leading with a pledge to stop seeking death-penalty sentences if elected. He has described the District Attorney’s Office “a place with a mad zeal for the highest charge, for the highest level of conviction, a culture that can find no flaw in police misconduct, that is drunk on the death penalty.”