Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured the first felony criminal conviction against President Donald Trump, has been quietly recalibrating his image ahead of New York’s Democratic primary at the end of the month.
Bragg entered office as a liberal reformer but has since distanced himself from the movement that helped put him into power. Now he’s pitching himself as a prosecutor focused squarely on cracking down on crime.
“His shift is not a surprise, as he had likely seen what happened to other electoral challenges, losses, and recalls of Big City progressive DAs, such as [Los Angeles’s] George Gascon, Alameda County’s Pamela Price, and recalled San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin,” Jeff Le, former deputy Cabinet secretary to former California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), told the Washington Examiner.
Bragg, a Harlem-born, Harvard-educated chief prosecutor, had no prior experience in elected office when he won his first term in November 2021. He beat out a crowded field of opponents and was almost immediately thrust onto the national stage after bringing 34 felony charges against Trump over a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Bragg’s indictment in 2023 marked the first time a former U.S. president faced criminal charges. It was the first of four indictments that would plague Trump as he sought his party’s 2024 nomination. Pretrial motions and appeals had stalled the other cases in D.C., Florida, and Georgia.
Experts slammed Bragg and his posse of prosecutors, claiming their case was the weakest of the four. Bragg also faced an onslaught of criticism from Trump and his allies, who argued the charges were politically motivated.
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Like other law enforcement officials who have taken on the president, Bragg, Manhattan’s first black district attorney, received enormous amounts of race-based hate messages and threats of violence. The Washington Post reported that investigators responded to nearly 600 threats against Bragg, his family, and staff.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had sued Trump and his business for engaging in a decade of fraud, was also targeted by Trump. However, unlike Bragg, who mostly kept his head down and focused on the case, she made it her mission to become Trump’s nemesis.
When she ran for attorney general in 2018, James tweeted that if elected, she would be “leading the resistance against Donald Trump in NYC.”
She fundraised off of vowing to take Trump down and claimed, without access to evidence, that he “engaged in a pattern and practice of money laundering” and could be charged for “criminal offenses.”
The day after winning her election, she said, “We’re going to definitely sue him. We’re going to be a real pain in the ass. He’s going to know my name personally.”
Ever since, Trump has taken verbal jabs at James every chance he’s gotten. He’s attacked her on social media and most recently called her a “wacky crook” and a “totally corrupt politician.”
Trump, who has never been shy about getting even with his enemies, even turned to the Justice Department. FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Fox News that his agency was conducting a criminal inquiry into James, focusing on properties she owns and whether she fudged information on records to receive favorable loan terms.
“This is just following the playbook of [Trump’s] retribution campaign,” James’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, told the New York Times. “It takes nothing to ‘begin an investigation’ but that doesn’t mean there’s anything to investigate.”
Unlike James, Bragg has largely dodged the insults and threats of payback since winning his case. Chris Walsh, founder of Walsh Law, a criminal defense firm in Folsom, California, credited Bragg for being smart and “playing a longer, quieter game.”
“He’s avoiding the backlash that’s plagued other Trump prosecutors by sticking to local issues, procedural integrity, and a more reserved public persona — a move that seems to be serving him well both in court and in the polls,” Walsh told the Washington Examiner. “His approach stands out for its cautious tone, especially when compared to other prosecutors involved in President Trump’s legal battles. Prosecutors like Letitia James and Fani Willis have drawn intense political fire and public pushback, partly because of the bold, sweeping nature of their cases and rhetoric. Bragg has taken a noticeably quieter path, particularly in the public eye.”
Walsh added that Bragg’s prosecution of Trump had been “narrowly tailored and legally conservative” and that Bragg avoided making “sweeping constitution arguments or public statements condemning Trump’s conduct on a moral level.”
“It’s a tactic that reduces exposure to claims of bias or overreach, especially with such a polarizing defendant,” he said, adding that, unlike James, who pursued Trump aggressively on the civil side and speaks frequently about her mission to hold him accountable, Bragg has shifted his approach.
“He looks more attuned to his local electorate and the optics of political neutrality,” Walsh said. “For criminal defense attorneys watching this unfold, it’s clear that Bragg’s branding as a prosecutor is evolving — balancing progressive reformist roots with a more moderate, almost institutional posture that appeals to centrist voters in Manhattan.”
Marcus Denning, a senior attorney at MK Law, agrees.
“[Bragg] didn’t make the Trump case his entire identity, even after securing the conviction,” Denning told the Washington Examiner. “Instead, he delivered on the prosecution, then quickly shifted focus to local issues such as neighborhood safety and diversion programs that connect with everyday voters. That gave people a reason to see him as more than a partisan figure and positioned him as someone focused on long-term, steady governance.”
Four years ago, Bragg won his Democratic primary, besting more than half a dozen opponents. This year, his only opponent heading into the primary is Patrick Timmons, an adjunct law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former Bronx prosecutor. The winner will face Republican challenger Maud Maron and independent candidate Diana Florence in November’s general election. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Manhattan by a 7-1 margin.
Timmons told the New York Post that he is a “common-sense Democrat” and has vowed to go after subway fare beaters.
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He also said if elected, he would “aggressively expunge the records of people who served their time with a main focus on drug offenses and non-violent crimes.”
Calls to Bragg’s office for comment were not returned.