With Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D-NY) narrow win last week, Soros-backed, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg gets to keep his job. This is despite the crime crisis which has occurred during his time in office, which Bragg, Hochul, and fellow Democrats have largely dismissed. Hochul's Republican opponent, on the other hand, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), made crime a major focus of his campaign, and almost one. That included the promise to fire Bragg upon taking office. Bragg on Friday responded via an op-ed in The New York Daily News, "A safer, fairer Manhattan is within our reach: DA Alvin Bragg on where to go from here," in which he makes the issue about race.
From the start, Bragg mentions Zeldin and portrays himself as the victim, despite how the real victims are those Manhattanites living under exploding crime rates. Early on, he writes:
Zeldin can try to explain why his campaign so aggressively targeted the first Black district attorney in Manhattan history, while remaining silent on other prosecutors, including white district attorneys whose jurisdictions have comparable or less favorable crime rates. But Zeldin’s glaring factual gaps and misleading rhetoric simply exposed how his most prominent campaign promise was long on demagoguery and short on substance.
Zeldin responded on Saturday, with a strongly worded statement clearing the air, which begins by making mention of Bragg's day one memo outlining many crimes he would not enforce or treat as lesser offenses. He proceeds by going into specifics.
"As we saw in the Jose Alba case and many other cases in his office, Bragg is one of the weakest, far-left DAs in the entire nation. If he was serious about fighting crime, he would be calling on Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to overhaul cashless bail and give judges discretion to weigh dangerousness," the statement continued. "He would be calling for an overhaul of other pro-criminal laws, such as Less is More, the HALT Act, Raise the Age, and recent discovery law changes. He would be fighting to protect qualified immunity for law-enforcement and ensuring our men and women in blue have all the tools and resources they need to do their jobs safely and effectively. In reality, he does the opposite of all of that."
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In closing, Zeldin's statement makes clear that "Our criticism of Bragg has absolutely nothing to do with his skin color. It has everything to do with him being one of the weakest, most incompetent, pro-criminal DAs in the country."
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg wrote an Op Ed in @NYDailyNews claiming that opposing his dangerous policies must be due to his skin color. The criticism has NOTHING to do with his race, but it does have EVERYTHING to do with Bragg being one of the weakest, pro-criminal DAs in the US. pic.twitter.com/S7JlCplm6C
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) November 19, 2022
The Jose Alba mentioned in Zeldin's statement was charged by Bragg's office for murder after he fatally stabbed an assailant in self-defense at his bodega. Bragg only dropped the charges after much public outcry, which included a Newsweek op-ed from Charles Love, "We Were Wrong About Progressive DAs. They Do Want to Lock People Up: Victims." Alba is headed back to the Dominican Republic, having had enough.
Bragg's op-ed doesn't get any better. At one point he also repeats the claim that post-pandemic crime has gone up in red states, citing an op-ed by Paul Krugman for The New York Times. Such is the same tactic employed by Hillary Clinton and Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, who has been impeached though he has not yet been convicted or acquitted.
Data has found that, for the most part, homicide rates ate particularly high in cities run by Democrats.
.@Heritage: The Blue City Murder Problem https://t.co/OVyalCQCcd
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 4, 2022
When it comes to Bragg's soft-on-crime approaches that are referenced and condemned in Zeldin's statement above, the one-sided points just add insult to injury. While touting his claims about a reduction in homicides and shootings, there's no mention of how crime rates overall have increased, or that there have been high recidivism rates, especially among career criminals, following the state's disastrous cashless bail system.
"So while we reject reckless hyperbole that tries to divide and stoke fear, we know safety concerns are real. We take them seriously, recognize the challenges before us all, and persistently work to make our city safer with a clear plan," Bragg writes, with "gun enforcement" being the first specific addressed. Fellow Democrats, including and especially Gov. Hochul, have also had a one-track mind when it comes to equating crime solely with guns.
Other topics include "sex crimes," "hate crimes," "tenant protection," "retail theft," and "pathways to public safety."
Earlier this month, The New York Post's Dean Balsamini highlighted how "After 10 months in office, Manhattan DA has nothing to Bragg about."
"Last week, the voters agreed when they rejected cheap distortions, histrionics and a stunning lack of substance. What we need now is hard work and vision to deliver the safety our communities need, and the fairness we deserve," Bragg closes his piece with—entitled but also tone-deaf until the bitter end.
While Hochul was indeed just elected to serve her first full term, Zeldin won 49 out of New York's 62 counties. He also became the first Republican gubernatorial nominee to win Staten Island since 2002. With an estimated 93 percent of the vote in, Hochul has 52.86 percent of the vote to Zeldin's 47.14 percent. Such a margin is a far cry from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), who preceded Hochul, winning by double digits, including by 23 points in 2018.
Zeldin also made inroads with Asian voters, who are often the victim of these hate crimes.
NY's Asian voters rejected Dems, backed Zeldin and GOP over crime, education https://t.co/Q5QvEzgDAu pic.twitter.com/ObdDDLWDwG
— New York Post (@nypost) November 20, 2022
Thanks to Zeldin, many Republicans from New York were elected to Congress. Republicans in all likelihood owe their majority in the House to him. As for what's next for Zeldin, he is "seriously considering" running for RNC Chairman.
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