Raymond Concedes the Election and Hands Over the Prosecutor's Office Early

Raymond Horgan’s Election Day defeat becomes more than the end of a campaign: it prompts him to seek an immediate break with the office he is about to lose. As television projections give Nico Delia Guardia a decisive lead, Raymond rejects the prospect of a lame-duck transition and prepares to offer Nico an early start. The concession is not yet a completed transfer in these scenes. It is a decision made amid the public rituals of defeat, the private loyalties of the prosecutor’s office, and a political structure in which the county executive still has authority over the handover.

The campaign’s last hours

The day begins with a fragile possibility of victory. The weather is bright, and, the previous night, Raymond’s advisers had treated it as a potential advantage. A poll taken when Augustine Bolcarro endorsed Raymond had put him only five points behind. Mike Duke believed the campaign had improved since then, arguing that Raymond had regained some momentum as an underdog. The men in Raymond’s office continued to discuss winning, though their hope already had the air of an effort to keep defeat at bay.

Election Day also exposed the political arrangement behind the office. During Raymond’s twelve years as prosecutor, staff had not been expected to donate money or spend time helping his campaigns. But many administrative employees had continuing obligations to the party sponsors who secured their jobs. In a compact made with Bolcarro about a decade earlier, Raymond had agreed to give most of the office’s political employees Election Day off. They could work for the party, and this time their efforts were directed toward Nico Delia Guardia. The office’s restraint from overt campaigning therefore did not remove it from local political networks; it left those older obligations in place.

Rusty Sabich spent most of the day at work, where he was effectively left to keep the prosecutor’s office running. Younger deputies joined the U.S. Attorney’s office on a vote-fraud patrol, responding to complaints about malfunctioning voting machines, guns at polling places, campaign buttons worn by election judges, and elderly voters receiving excessive advice. The complaints were generally unsubstantiated. When the press called, Rusty reported that there was no sign of interference with the democratic process. The routine of answering those calls continued even as the campaign’s prospects narrowed.

Defeat becomes unavoidable

At about 4:30, Dan Lipranzer called with an early indication of the result. A contact at Channel 3 had seen the exit polls and estimated that Nico would win by eight to ten points if the pattern held. Rusty’s response was physical as well as political: his heart sank and his stomach tightened. Looking toward the courthouse columns, downtown rooftops, and the river, he found a familiar view suddenly strange. The election result had altered his sense of the place where he had worked for almost seven years.

The early projections became the night’s public reality. At Raymond’s campaign gathering, banners and green campaign boaters carried the slogan Horgan! Everything, while two ten-foot enlargements of The Picture stood beside the empty speakers’ platform. Rusty moved through the ballroom, eating meatballs and feeling the loss. By about 7:30, all three local television stations had projected Nico as the winner. The campaign suite, crowded with staff and supplied with cold cuts and liquor, was alive with ringing phones; the practical details of defeat were already taking shape around Raymond.

Even the people closest to the campaign had to confront the change. Larren Lyttle arrived with bourbon and complained about the exit polls. Raymond, by contrast, remained composed. He hugged Rusty, then continued taking calls and conferring with campaign associates. The gesture mattered to Rusty not because it was necessarily unique, but because it made him feel included in the circle grieving the loss. In the same room, the campaign’s end was at once a public event and a personal rupture.

The concession and the proposed handover

The immediate question was how Raymond should acknowledge the result. His associates considered whether he should first contact Nico or go downstairs to address his supporters. Raymond rejected the suggestion of sending a telegram: Nico was across the street, and Raymond would go over to shake his hand. He planned to see Nico, make a speech, and return for individual interviews with print and broadcast reporters. He also arranged for interviews to begin later that evening, with a live appearance scheduled for ten. His response was not to avoid the press or turn the concession into a public feud, but to meet the obligations of the night directly.

Before that public sequence, Raymond asked to speak with Rusty alone. He acknowledged that the following day would be difficult, but said they would survive it. Then he returned to the question of the office. He did not want a lame-duck period or the appearance that he was using the prosecutor’s position for political advantage. Instead, he intended to offer his resignation when he saw Nico and tell him that he was free to take office if the county executive approved. Because Bolcarro held that office, the condition also made clear that the transfer depended on the party power structure Raymond had long had to navigate.

Rusty told Raymond that the decision was wise. Raymond answered with an apology: if there had been a deputy he wanted to succeed him, it would have been Rusty, and he should have tried to make that succession happen rather than run again. He blamed the pressure to seek one more term. The remark gives the transition a private consequence beyond the election result. Raymond’s departure closes off a possible professional future for Rusty, while also acknowledging that the choice to keep the office had prevented that outcome.

A break deferred until morning

The planned meeting with Nico did not happen that night. Larren reported that he had spoken with Tommy Molto, now acting as Nico’s principal aide, and that Nico’s side preferred to meet Raymond in the morning. They specified ten o’clock and wanted Raymond to come alone. Larren resented the directive, but Raymond accepted the arrangement. When Larren said he had told Nico’s people that Raymond would call to concede when ready, Raymond took Larren’s bourbon, drank, and said he was ready.

That readiness marks the emotional and political turn of the episode: Raymond has stopped treating the result as a possibility to resist and has accepted the need to yield. Yet the formal concession and early transfer remain ahead. He is to meet Nico alone the next morning; his offer to resign depends on the county executive’s approval; and the public speech and interviews are still part of the night’s plan. Rusty leaves rather than listen further, carrying the break into the office and the uncertainty it creates for his own future. The sequence ends not with a completed succession but with Raymond’s decision to make one possible, and with the old administration already giving way to the people who will replace it.