Patrick Dugan is a former Municipal Court judge who ran as the Republican candidate for District Attorney in the November 4, 2025 election. A military veteran and lifelong Philadelphian, Dugan has said he was running to restore both stronger prosecution for violent crimes and more robust diversion for lesser offenses.

In 2024, Dugan resigned from the bench to run for the Democratic nomination for District Attorney against sitting DA Larry Krasner in the May 2025 primary. He lost the primary, and, in August 2025, became the Republican nominee through unusual means. Pre-primary, Republican leaders urged Republicans to put Dugan’s name in the empty Republican ballot field. These write-ins far exceeded the 1,000-vote threshold (by 6,000 votes) to required to send Dugan to the general election as the Republican candidate.

In August 2025, Dugan agreed to join the Republican ticket, while affirming his “independent Democrat” status and saying he is “running for all Philadelphians,” regardless of party.

Judge Patrick Dugan

Governor Ed Rendell appointed Dugan to the bench in 2007. In 2010, Dugan founded the Philadelphia Veterans Court, one of several Philly “problem-solving” courts designed to help divert specific, low-risk populations to rehabilitative social services instead of incarceration. He has also supported other problem-solving courts, including Drug and Alcohol court, Mental Health court and Project Dawn, which focuses on prostitution.

In 2019, Dugan’s peers elected him President Judge. As President Judge, he guided the courts through the pandemic and authorized the Eviction Diversion Program, which helped more than 46,000 families remain in their homes during the pandemic and, he says, helped pay landlords more than $300 million.

More controversially, in 2013, he presided over the nonjury trial of Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Jonathan Josey, who was recorded and accused of assaulting a woman at the 2012 Puerto Rican Day Parade. Dugan’s wife is a PPD officer and was in the courtroom during the reading of the verdict — which some legal experts argued was a conflict of interest. The judge ruled the evidence was not enough to convict Josey.

In 2024, Dugan ran for Superior Court and lost.

Dugan vs. Krasner, primary edition

Before the 2025 primary, while still a Democratic nominee, Dugan told Citizen co-founder Larry Platt he wanted to be DA because “he was tired of seeing untrained prosecutors in his courtroom subvert justice and endanger Philadelphians.” Platt described Dugan as “a reluctant candidate” and “blue-collar guy who bleeds Eagles green and red, white and blue.”

If elected DA, Dugan believes he can make Philadelphia safer by splitting the DA’s Office into six regional divisions, each with a dedicated prosecutor to better build relationships within communities, in a similar vein to community policing.

Dugan wants to focus on diversion programs for low-level offenders — which he has a record of doing as a Municipal Judge. He said under Krasner, the “DA’s office is an impediment to collaborative efforts like evidence-based GVI (Gun Violence Initiative) strategies.

He has attacked Krasner’s handling of retail theft in the city, which has increased year over year and criticized Krasner for framing the DA’s race as a referendum on President Donald Trump, whom both candidates have denounced.

Before the primary, Building Trades manager Ryan Boyer, often pictured alongside Mayor Parker (whose campaign Boyer also championed), led multiple trade unions in endorsing Dugan. (Boyer said Dugan’s stance on retail theft convinced him.) But city Democratic ward leaders declined to endorse any primary candidate for DA.

Dugan and Krasner faced off in their first debate in West Philadelphia on March 11, 2025. The Inquirer reported Dugan laid out additional positions: He “said he would retain some of Krasner’s reforms and even bolster them, including the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, which reviews closed cases and works to exonerate the innocent. Krasner has made the office’s work to exonerate more than 50 people a central focus of his administration … Dugan framed his own positions on major policy issues as more flexible” (than Krasner’s).

He explained prosecutorial philosophy to The Citizen this way: “A judge and a DA should do the same thing, and it’s really just common sense: You help a good person who’s having a bad day and winds up in court, but those people who are going around having bad days on purpose? They need to be held accountable.”

Comparing Dugan and Krasner

Both candidates have been lifelong Democrats and long operated on similar legal and ethnical principles. Both have denounced Trump. But even before Dugan joined the Republican ticket, their differences surfaced:

• • Both touted diversion, but Dugan said he can better deliver on “wraparound services” based on his experience in diversion courts.
  • Anti-capital punishment, Dugan has said, but would consider it in the case of a mass murder or murder of law enforcement.
  • Dugan wanted to embed prosecutors in communities, to give them a sense of what specific neighborhoods want and need.
  • He has said he would have liked to foster in a return to hiring for the DA’s office from local law schools, after Krasner focused recruitment efforts on Ivy League schools and HBCUs.
  • Dugan wanted to prosecute gun crimes to the fullest extent of the law.
  • Having rallied against Krasner’s earlier shoplifting policies, Dugan supports the PPD’s current approach to retail theft, and would like to implement a retail theft diversion program.
  • He wanted to revamp the DA’s CIU (Conviction Integrity Unit) that investigates claims of wrongful convictions and sentencing inequities, to collaborate more with investigators, witnesses and victim’s families.

Before becoming Judge

A lifelong Philadelphian, Dugan was born in Fairmont and grew up in Frankford and comes from a long line of first responders and military men. He served in the Army from 1981 to 1989, first as a Nuclear Biological Warfare Specialist and airborne infantryman. Afterwards, he attended law school at Rutgers-Camden. He re-enlisted after 9/11 and went on to coordinate democracy training and establish one of the first Women’s Empowerment Groups in Iraq. A father and grandfather, Dugan is married to Nancy Farrell Dugan. They live in Northeast Philadelphia.

More about Pat Dugan

• • Former Democratic challenger Pat Dugan is now Republican challenger in race for Philadelphia District Attorney — August 11, 2025, WHYY
  • Philly DA candidates Larry Krasner and Patrick Dugan debated for the first time, and the gloves came off — March 12, 2025, The Philadelphia Inquirer [paywall]
  • Is Larry Krasner in Trouble? — February 14, 2025, The Philadelphia Citizen
  • Former Philly judge announces run for district attorney, setting up likely Democratic primary challenge — January 15, 2025, WHYY

Pat Dugan’s campaign

The Dugan for PA website.

Follow the campaign on social media: Facebook and Instagram.

Every Voice, Every Vote funds Philadelphia media and community organizations to expand access to civic news and information. The coalition is led by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.

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