2025 ELECTION: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg getting brisk challenge from ex-prosecutor Diana Florence and public defender Maud Maron

While most Manhattanites are focused on the mayoral race this November, they will also get to decide whether to re-elect incumbent Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or replace him with one of two candidates challenging him for the key law enforcement post.

Bragg, the Democratic and Working Families Party nominee, is up against Safer Manhattan Party nominee and veteran prosecutor Diana Florence and public defender and Republican/Conservative nominee Maud Maron.

Bragg took office on Jan. 1, 2022, as the 37th Manhattan District Attorney and first Black person elected to the post. In June of this year, he handily won the Democratic primary, defeating Patrick Timmins, a litigator, law professor and former Bronx assistant district attorney.

The incumbent chief prosecutor of Manhattan leads a team of about 600 attorneys and is the frontrunner with a long list of endorsements, although he also faces strong criticism, usually from the far right.

Bragg prosecuted Donald Trump for a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, which Trump’s company listed as a legal expense. A jury found Trump guilty of 33 felony counts of falsifying business records, though his sentencing was indefinitely suspended after Trump was re-elected president last November.

In 2022, Bragg also issued a memo instructing staffers not to prosecute certain types of cases or seek bail or prison time in others, with a focus on violent crime, which led to some criticism of being soft on crime overall. He has supported closing Rikers Island as well as an added focus on mental health.

A native of Harlem, Bragg created the office’s first Special Victims Division, Worker Protection Unit and Housing and Tenant Protection Unit, while expanding the Hate Crimes Unit. He also created a Post-Conviction Justice Unit to reinvestigate closed cases where there are “credible claims of innocence or unjust conviction.”

Prior to being Manhattan DA, Bragg worked as a law professor, New York State chief deputy attorney general and an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard College and a law degree from Harvard Law School, served as professor at the New York Law School and in 2017-2018 was New York State chief deputy attorney general.

Maron, meanwhile, became the Republican and Conservative nominees without a challenge. Her primary claim to fame, however, was her time as a member of Manhattan’s Community Education Council District 2, where in 2024, she helped pass a resolution challenging the city Department of Education policy protecting the right of transgender students to participate in sports according to their gender identity. The resolution drew public rebuke from local elected officials and was eventually rescinded.

“I’m running for District Attorney because I believe everyone deserves to live and work in a safe, fair, and vibrant community,” Maron said.

The Republican nominee seeks mandatory inpatient treatment for the mentally ill on the streets and supports keeping “jails out of our neighborhoods” by keeping Rikers Island open, opposing the city’s mandate to close the jail facility in 2027 and replace it with community-based institutions.

She also wants to better investigate fraud and corruption in government services and contracts.

Born in Manhattan, Maron graduated from Barnard College in 1993 and earned a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University in 1998. A longtime attorney with the Legal Aid Society, she served as a public defender in Manhattan and the Bronx, representing clients in misdemeanor and felony cases, for over 20 years. As a Senior Trial Attorney and Director of Training at the Legal Aid Society, she also mentored young lawyers.

Florence, meanwhile, is a long-time resident of Kips Bay who started her career 30 years ago in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, after receiving her BA with honors and Phi Beta Kappa and law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As a prosecutor, she has focused largely on street crime, domestic violence, complex frauds, and corruption cases, creating and leading the nation’s first Construction Fraud Task Force.

She is fluent in Spanish, taught trial advocacy for over two decades to lawyers in the DA’s Office, and ran for Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, with the support of 20 labor unions.

Florence has dubbed her campaign the “Safer Manhattan” initiative, opposing the downgrading of many quality-of-life crimes.

“Manhattan deserves a DA who will take decisive action to restore order and fairness,” Florence said when she announced her candidacy in Foley Square.

She is calling for “ending downgrading” of quality-of-life crimes like shoplifting, vandalism, and trespassing; targeting retail theft rings and serial shoplifters and protecting workers, by prosecuting wage theft and unsafe job conditions to “ensure justice for working people.”

Early voting in the 2025 general election begins on Saturday, Oct. 25. The election itself will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 4.