LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a test of how far criminal justice reforms can go, two would-be progressive prosecutors are trying to unseat the two-term Los Angeles district attorney, who found herself in the midst of an ill-timed controversy on the eve of the primary election after her husband pulled a gun on protesters outside their home.

District Attorney Jackie Lacey is facing the first re-election battle of her two-term career from former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and ex-public defender Rachel Rossi.

Lacey held an emotional press conference on the eve of the primary election to apologize after her husband pointed a handgun and said “I will shoot you” to Black Lives Matter members demonstrating on their property before dawn Monday.

Lacey said she and her husband, David, were awakened and frightened by the demonstration that occurred before 6 a.m..

She has clashed repeatedly with Black Lives Matter protesters, who say she is too protective of law enforcement and doesn't prosecute officers in fatal shootings.

Gascon and Rossi, who are white, have also hammered the African-American Lacey for locking up too many people of color, failing to prosecute police for fatal shootings and other on-duty uses of force as well as not making enough use of a program she started to keep from locking up people with mental illness.

Lacey's challengers are trying to ride a wave of reform that has swept a new generation of prosecutors into offices from Boston to Houston to Denver who have advocated for racial justice, focusing resources on serious and dangerous crime, ending cash bail and diverting the mentally ill and drugs users to treatment instead of prison.

Lacey has focused mainly on attacking Gascon, who she said disproportionately prosecuted blacks, never brought charges against a police officer in a fatal shooting and failed to carry out reforms in San Francisco that he proposes for Los Angeles. She also said a ballot measure he authored to reduce some felonies to misdemeanors, including some thefts, led San Francisco to have the nation's highest property crime rate per capita in the U.S.

The candidate with more than 50% of votes in the nonpartisan contest wins. If no one gets a majority, the top two will face a runoff in November.

The winner will oversee the largest prosecutor’s office in the U.S., with nearly 1,000 lawyers, and a territory that covers the nation’s second-largest city and 10 million residents across the sprawling county.

Money has poured into the campaign with police unions spending more than $1 million on independent expenditure campaigns for Lacey while private donors and celebrities who support reform are fueling Gascon's challenge. Rossi trails significantly in fund-raising.

While the race is an example of the political divide in the state, with the northern half trending more liberal, both Gascon and Lacey grew up in Los Angeles.

Lacey, who is the first woman to lead the office and the first African-American in the post, grew up in South Los Angeles. Gascon moved from Cuba as a teen to the gritty LA suburb of Bell.

Lacey has been a career prosecutor who worked her way up to the top of the offfice.

Gascon was a police who rose through the ranks to assistant chief in Los Angeles before being named top cop in Mesa, Arizona, and then San Francisco. He was appointed as district attorney to replace Kamala Harris when she became state attorney general and was elected twice.

Lacey on Monday also apologized on behalf of her husband following the gun incident. She said she expects people to exercise their First Amendment rights, “but our home is our sanctuary.”

Detectives are investigating a “possible assault with a deadly weapon” at the Lacey residence, Los Angeles police said in a statement.

Gascon's campaign did not immediately comment on the controversy.

“As district attorney, I will never run from the community," Rossi said in a statement. "And I never thought I’d have to say it, but I will also never threaten to shoot — or have others threaten to shoot — community members protesting my actions.”