Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who has been embroiled in a controversy after Black Lives Matters protesters turned up at her home in the early hours of Monday morning and were met with her husband meeting them with a handgun, offered an on-the-record interview Tuesday night as election results began to roll in.
"We're really happy that the number is what it is: that it's almost 55% and my competitors are down around 22%," Lacey said. "We're cautiously optimistic, because these are early votes. There are still a lot of votes to be counted, but this is a really good start. I must say that I'm very optimistic."
On her thoughts towards everyone she represents in the County, even those who disagree with her decisions and leadership, Lacey said, "Campaigns can get nasty. They can get ugly, but my message was always that I wanted to be the District Attorney for all of LA County. That still is my message, that I go to work every day to really try to make legal calls based on the evidence and the law.
"I have led the way in terms of getting our county to address the needs of those who have a mental health issue, which turns out to be important in terms of getting people housed who are currently living on the streets. And I always felt that message would resonate with voters, and I hope that those who may have chosen to vote for another candidate will work with me to see if we can solve some of the more important issues that people in Los Angeles County want to see us solve."
Lacey, then, spoke about the response following her husband's confrontation with protesters and the LA County district attorney's decison to hold a news conference to speak about the incident later the same day.
"I got a tremendous amount of emails and calls of support, and I didn't really expect that. It seems like, by going out and talking about it as a human being, that that might have been the best thing that I could have done, because I think voters understand how public officials, we put them on these pedestals, and we expect them to be perfect 100% of the time, but the truth of the matter is we're all just people.
"An election should never get to the point where people are threatening each other, or harassing each other, or bullying one another. It seems like around the country, there's just a new tone with regard to elections that didn't used be there. I think that the majority of voters want people who are willing to sit down and talk with one another, talk about the issues in an intelligent and civil manner, and work together. I'm hoping that that's really the message that people take away from what happened to us.
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"I'm just running for reelection, and here's all this animosity that I think was just needless."
