Incumbent Suffolk District Attorney Kevin R. Hayden won a three-way Democratic primary race Tuesday night, clinching another four-year term as the county’s top law enforcement official over two challengers, Rachael Rollins and Linda G. Champion.
The Associated Press called the race for Hayden just before midnight.
“It feels pretty darn good,” said Hayden to cheers at his election night party at The Stockyard Restaurant in Brighton.
Hayden, 58, addressed that crowd just before 10 p.m., stating that he won by a sizable margin, although the majority of results were still trickling in at that time.
The campaign for Rollins did not immediately react to Hayden’s victory speech. A campaign spokesperson indicated the campaign would not issue a statement until Wednesday. Attempts to reach the campaign of the other challenger, Champion, were not successful.
Hayden, a one-time appointee of a Republican governor who has a reputation as a moderate Democrat, faced off in the race against Rollins, a progressive but controversial firebrand, and Champion, who is backed by Boston’s largest police union.
With no Republican in the field, Tuesday’s primary was a winner-takes-all contest for the DA seat representing Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop.
The campaign was not without its bumps for Hayden, who ruffled feathers among former supporters in the law enforcement community with his decision to charge a Boston police officer earlier this year with manslaughter just days after the officer shot a man to death during a traffic stop.
That move set off a political firestorm for Hayden, with the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the largest police union in Boston, abandoning its support of him.
He did, however, earn the support of progressive stalwarts like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whom he thanked during his victory speech.
“I’m humbled and overwhelmed by all of this,” he said.
Tuesday’s primary recalled a history of bad blood between Hayden and Rollins, who preceded Hayden as Suffolk DA, before she left that post to become US Attorney for Massachusetts.
Rollins was forced to resign from that federal post, following two bombshell federal reports documented a multitude of “egregious” and “blatant” ethics violations.
That Rollins turmoil was rooted in last contest for Suffolk DA back in 2022, which also saw Hayden battered with controversy.
Hayden received a $5,000 ethics fine for his office’s press release about his political opponent, then-Boston city councilor Ricardo Arroyo, during that contest.
That same race also spelled political disaster for Rollins. As Hayden ran for a full-term that year, Rollins sought to help his opponent and her friend, Arroyo, by coordinating with him and trying to leak to the press information to undermine Hayden.
The primary between Hayden and Arroyo was Boston politics at its most bare-knuckled, but Hayden prevailed.
The following year, Rollins resigned from the US Attorney’s office ahead of the release of two reports that found her behind-the-scenes support of Arroyo broke multiple rules and that she then lied to investigators.
This year’s race was tame by comparison, and Tuesday night at his election night party in Brighton, that nasty and tangled background might as well have been ancient history for Hayden.
The DA’s constituency, Suffolk County, is dominated by Boston, the state’s largest community which is currently considered to be among the safest big cities in the nation, with shootings and homicides both lower than the 5-year average as of August. In his speech to supporters, Hayden highlighted his office’s work, flicking to Boston’s relatively low violent crime numbers, and saying that voters wanted “real results.”
Champion, an attorney who had a brief stint as a prosecutor and who ran for unsuccessfully for Suffolk district attorney in 2018, also has connections to Hayden. Previously, she worked as a legal counsel for the district attorney’s office under Hayden following his election in 2022, according to a press release from the following year.
During this year’s campaign, she has tried to position herself as a less scandal-plagued alternative to both Hayden and Rollins, neither of whom, she has suggested, have the proper temperament for the DA position.
In recent months, Champion, who is seen as a moderate, tried to capitalize on Hayden’s decision to charge the Boson police officer with manslaughter to lure new supporters.
Sean Cotter and Kelly Garrity of Globe staff contributed to this report.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.