LOS ANGELES–Today, Team Gascón announced that it has contacted over 1.5 million LA County voters. As of 2:30pm, Team Gascón’s text banking program had sent 1,655,473 texts, made 40,871 calls, and registered over 1,900 volunteers. In total, the campaign contacted 1,506,002 unique voters.
“This is a grassroots movement to transform criminal justice in Los Angeles County,” said former District Attorney and LAPD Assistant Chief, George Gascón. “I am incredibly grateful to the thousands of volunteers and supporters who have joined this fight. The groundswell of support is humbling, and no matter what the result is tonight this community’s overwhelming demand for justice, equity and change can not be ignored.”
“Gascón’s commitment to work in partnership with the community and listen to constituent voices is embodied by this people powered campaign and his track record of working with and learning from victims and impacted communities,” said Campaign Manager Jamarah Hayner. “While we have thousands of volunteers stretching across the county our opponent doesn’t even have a volunteer tab on her website. She is counting on millions of dollars from police unions to carry her over the finish line.”
Team Gascón’s successful ability to innovate and adjust to a modern digital landscape is reflective of a candidate with a history of implementing modern solutions. George Gascón has long been known to embrace technology to modernize antiquated systems. As San Francisco DA, Gascón worked with Stanford University to pioneer the use of artificial intelligence in order to prevent prosecutors from seeing a defendant’s race during charging stages. Moreover, Gascón used technology to implement a Crime Strategies Unit to target offenders driving a disproportionate share of crime. Gascón was also the first DA in the country to partner with Code For America to clear marijuana convictions at scale.
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George Gascón is the Democratic Party’s nominee. He is endorsed by the LA Times and the LA Daily News, Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Governor Gavin Newsom, Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, labor leader and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, and former Chief of the LAPD Charlie Beck. Click here for a full list of his supporters.
Mr. Gascón grew up in Los Angeles after his family immigrated from Cuba. An army veteran, Gascón served as a Los Angeles Police Department Officer for 30 years, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief of Operations. In 2006 he became Chief of Police in Mesa, Arizona, where he stood up to the hateful and anti-immigrant policies of then Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In 2009, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Gascón Chief of Police. Newsom turned to Gascón again in 2011 when he tapped him to be District Attorney to fill the seat vacated by an outgoing Kamala Harris who had been elected Attorney General. During his tenure Gascón implemented reforms that are being duplicated across the country while overseeing violent crime and homicides drop to rates not seen in 50 years. After being elected to two terms, Gascón returned to Los Angeles to care for his elderly mother and to be closer to his two daughters and grandchildren in Long Beach. Gascón is married to Fabiola Kramsky, a three-time Emmy Award winning journalist and recipient of the “Premio Nacional de Periodismo,” the highest recognition given to journalists in Mexico.