Will Pat Dugan, who lost to Larry Krasner in the Democratic primary for district attorney, actively run as a Republican in the November general election?
It looks like the local GOP would really like him to.
An online poll texted to some Philadelphia residents on Wednesday asks the recipients’ opinions of Dugan, Krasner, Donald Trump, and an incorrectly spelled “Charelle Parker.” It also asks a couple pointed questions about the DA race.
Would the recipient vote for “Pat Dugan, a Democrat running on the Republican ticket; or Larry Krasner, the Democrat?”
And which do they believe is most responsible for “Philadelphia’s high crime rate and crime problem?” Is it Krasner, City Council, “Republicans who refuse to implement gun control,” or “Democrat policies that refuse to prosecute petty crimes and reduce sentences for other crimes”?
As the use of “Democrat” rather than “Democratic” suggests, the poll was commissioned by the Republican City Committee, the Inquirer reported.
“The poll, we hope, will tell us all of Larry Krasner’s vulnerabilities, and we’re still very hopeful that Judge Dugan will remain the Republican candidate for district attorney,” Republican committee chair Vince Fenerty told the paper.
Keeping his options open
Dugan came in a distant second place in the May primary, with about 36% of votes, to 64% for incumbent Krasner, who is seeking a third term.
No Republican ran, but the GOP mobilized its members to write in Dugan on their primary ballots. He got about 6,000 votes that way, far more than the 1,000 he needed to become the Republican nominee in the November general election.
Krasner is “the worst prosecutor in America. His primary opponent, former Judge Pat Dugan, was highly qualified and a man of strong character,” West Philly Republican ward leader Matt Wolfe wrote in an email newsletter Wednesday. “We asked Republicans to write him in and succeeded.”
Fenerty has said the plan was modeled on the 2023 campaign of Allegheny County DA Stephen Zappala, who lost the Democratic primary but received nearly 10,000 GOP write-in votes and went on to win the general election.
Other Democrats have used or tried to use similar strategies. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lost the recent primary for New York City mayor to Zohran Mamdani, but is now running on the “Fight and Deliver” party line for the general election.
Dugan campaign manager Dan Kalai said in May that the former judge would not run as a Republican, but Dugan himself has been less clear about his intentions. Immediately after the primary, Dugan campaign sources told WHYY News they were considering the GOP’s offer for him to run as a Republican.
Dugan has so far not taken steps to remove himself as the Republican nominee. He and Kalai did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Krasner calls Dugan a “Dem-publican”
In debates and forums before the primary, the famously progressive Krasner often attacked Dugan for the support he was receiving from Republicans and sought to liken him to Trump.
The district attorney continued to rail against his opponent when reached for comment Thursday, accusing Dugan of giving “mealy-mouthed” responses when he was previously asked about running as a Republican.
“He’s not a Democrat. He is a Dem-publican,” Krasner said. “This is a guy with one foot in Donald Trump world and one foot in the center-right Democratic Party, who has been dishonest with voters from the beginning.”
“He’s unqualified, he’s a sore loser, and he’s exactly what the Democratic Party does not need,” the DA said.
Krasner and his reformist approach to prosecuting crime have been targets of intense Republican criticism nationally since he first ran for the job in 2017. The DA noted that Dugan raised more money and spent more on advertising than he did during the primary campaign, due in part to contributions from Republican donors.
“I always figured that there would be something like this, because there’s too much Elon Musk money out there, because there is too much money from billionaires who are very happy with their tax cuts, courtesy of Donald Trump, the leader of Pat Dugan’s new party, the Republican Party,” Krasner said.
Dugan is apparently still a registered Democrat at this point.
The former judge’s financial advantage evaporated by the time of the primary, although Dugan could start up a new fundraising effort in the coming months. His campaign had only about $12,000 cash on hand as of early June, according to a campaign finance report, whereas Krasner had about $75,000.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
