An acrimonious district attorney race in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County ended with victory for incumbent Stephen Zappala over Matt Dugan, Allegheny's former top public defender, after the former ran as a Republican after he lost the primary.

Conceding the race down around 11,000 votes, Dugan said, “Losing is hard… I didn’t get into this race to lose this race… I’m proud of the work all of us have done.”

STATE RACES TO WATCH IN THE 2023 ELECTIONS

The matchup was a rare rematch from the primary election, as Zappala, a 25-year incumbent Democrat, switched to run as a Republican against his more progressive challenger. Although Zappala lost the Democratic primary in May, he made it on the general election ballot after he won the Republican nomination in a write-in vote.

The southwestern Pennsylvania county, which sees Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1, became a local flashpoint in the national debate over criminal justice and the liberal push for reform.

In the run-up to Election Day, the duo traded nasty barbs and had strikingly different visions for the future of Allegheny County, the state's second-most populous county, which encompasses Pittsburgh and has more than 1.2 million residents.

Zappala claimed Dugan's plan would turn the county into a mini San Francisco or Los Angeles, two progressive havens that have been overrun with crime. Dugan countered that Zappala's vision is outdated, his office is in disarray, and he does not represent the beliefs of the Democratic Party despite still being a card-carrying member.

Zappala told voters he has been able to bring the right balance of criminal justice reform and public safety to the office. He's also beefed up the staff, which used to be made up of 76 part-time lawyers but now has 130 full-time lawyers trained to take down criminals.

"When I first came in, there was no technology, so the first thing, we had to become like the private sector," Zappala added. "We had to become efficient in a lot of different ways."

Zappala has been credited for creating the county's first "problem-solving" court, aimed at addressing concerns such as repeated drug convictions and DUIs. He has pointed to these special courts when critics have slammed his office for being unnecessarily punitive. The most recent analysis of his prosecutorial decisions involving low-level crimes by the Appeal, a criminal justice news site, found that in 2017, his office prosecuted more than 1,700 low-level drug possession cases.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Dugan told the Pittsburgh City Paper that while treatment courts work, services intended to help repeat offenders, whether it be addiction or mental illness, need to be offered before someone enters the legal system. He preached a collaboration between the district attorney's office, local and state leaders, and social service providers to "end [low-level] matters without the lifelong consequence of criminal conviction."

He also promised to push for greater reductions in cash bail and has backed an initiative that would provide free expungement services for former clients whose charges were tossed out.