Republican candidate for Manhattan District Attorney, Maud Maron, will deliver an address to the New York State Bail Association on Wednesday, where she will challenge incumbent Alvin Bragg on his approach to law enforcement and outline her vision for restoring public safety to Manhattan.

In prepared remarks obtained exclusively by The New York Sun, Ms. Maron attacks Mr. Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies and says that a district attorney must prioritize prosecuting crime rather than acting as “a social worker for perpetrators of crime.”

Ms. Maron’s speech highlights the necessity of building relationships between prosecutors and law enforcement. “The DA of Manhattan should be laser focused on making Manhattan safe again. That is what I will do. I will work hand in hand with law enforcement to protect our citizens,” Ms. Maron says in her prepared remarks. 

A former Democrat and public defender, Ms. Maron is not a typical Republican candidate — and in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one, that can only work to her advantage. She says she used to be a “common-sense Democrat,” but the party left her when it moved far left. She is framing her candidacy as one that transcends traditional party lines and focuses on practical solutions to rising crime.

Crime and public safety are the number one issues among New York City voters, according to polls. There were 11 subway murders in 2024, compared to zero in 2017. Felony assaults are up more than 40 percent compared to 2019. Retail theft has skyrocketed. The MTA loses $700 million a year now to fare evasion.

A far-left prosecutor, Mr. Bragg is best known nationally for prosecuting Donald Trump and his failed prosecution of Daniel Penny. More significant, though, are the changes Mr. Bragg brought to the district attorney’s office through his policy directives, outlined in a Day One Memo, that the office would no longer prosecute subway fare evasion, shoplifting, marijuana misdemeanors, resisting arrest, prostitution, and other so-called minor crimes.

The results are not good. “We’ve basically engaged in a real-time giant civics experiment. If you stop prosecuting these laws will more people break those laws? And the answer is yes,” Ms. Maron told the Sun last month. “When you see people walking into pharmacies and scooping up product, putting it in bags, and walking out, you have this — it’s a fraying of civil society.”

Ms. Maron is promising to prosecute shoplifting and fare evasion to restore order to the city. She has four children, and she says the city her teenagers grew up in is much safer than the one her third grader is being raised in. She says this is “the direct result of bad policies that Alvin Bragg endorses and implements.”

“Bragg acts like a social worker who works for the very criminals he should be prosecuting,” Ms. Maron will say in her speech. “None of us should be surprised right now. Alvin Bragg told us exactly what he would do before he got elected.”

In her speech, Ms. Maron will also advocate for changes to the 2019 bail reform law that Governor Cuomo signed when he was in office. Mr. Cuomo is expected to announce a run for mayor in the coming weeks, and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is already attacking him for the legislation. In a public safety press conference last month, Mr. Adams said that recidivism is the biggest driver of city crime and, “we need every part of the criminal justice system to play their role,” which was a clear dig at Mr. Bragg.

Other mayoral candidates are also realizing that being tougher on crime will likely pay at the ballot box. Progressive mayoral candidate Brad Lander promised Tuesday at a press conference to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch if he is elected. Mr. Cuomo is calling “defund the police” the “dumbest words ever uttered.”

If she’s going to win, Ms. Maron will need Republicans and moderate Democrats to vote for her. “The job of the prosecutor, at some level, comes down to prosecuting. Deterrence is not fiction,” a moderate New York Democrat and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Peter Moskos, tells the Sun. 

“Those aren’t crazy positions that she holds. They’re not MAGA positions,” Mr. Moskos says of Ms. Maron. “Keep hammering away at the absurdities of bail reform.” 

If New Yorkers are going to vote Republican, though, they need to know what they’re getting. One of Ms. Maron’s biggest challenges is getting her message out, which requires fundraising.  

“She’s a very talented lady, and it all comes down to if she can write enough checks on her own, raise enough money to get her message out that she stands for law and order,” a grocery store magnet and former Republican candidate for mayor, John Catsimatidis, tells the Sun.