Hynes to Run for District Attorney as a Republican

NY Times The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, will campaign for re-election to a seventh term as a Republican despite having said earlier that he would not do so and despite losing the Democratic primary in September by a wide margin, his campaign said on Thursday. 

Mr. Hynes is a lifelong Democrat, but secured spots on the Republican and Conservative Party lines of the ballot for this year’s election. He had said he would not actively campaign as the candidate of those parties and promised a smooth transition to the man who defeated him, Kenneth P. Thompson, but changed his mind and decided to run this week after Republican leaders and longtime supporters urged him to campaign, said his spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer. 

In part, the decision was also driven by reports that Clarence Norman, a former chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and former assemblyman who was convicted of accepting illegal campaign contributions, had helped Mr. Thompson’s get-out-the-vote efforts on Primary Day, Mr. Schmetterer said. Mr. Thompson has emphatically denied working with Mr. Norman.