Three top mayoral candidates—Karen Bass, Nithya Raman, and Spencer Pratt—spent the weekend pushing their final cases to voters across Los Angeles ahead of Tuesday’s primary. With polls placing them within a tight margin and with undecided voters still a signif
For Karen Bass, the weekend’s final push looked like a familiar kind of momentum: a roar of supporters, union merch, and a chant that wouldn’t let up.
At Saturday’s rally, Bass—sporting the energy of an incumbent—galvanized crowds of labor union workers. The message came through in one refrain as a slew of local and state Democratic heavyweights joined her: “Four more years!”
Across town, City Councilmember Nithya Raman was moving with a different rhythm. She spent the day dashing between local restaurants and bars in an old-school yellow Scout convertible. meeting with business owners and her supporters. Her campaign has leaned heavily on detailed policy plans. and she added to that profile Saturday after recently dropping a policy plan for small businesses.
And then there was Spencer Pratt, who spent his weekend leaning into neighborhood events and, at times, uneasy conversations—exactly the kind that can decide a campaign when voters are still weighing their options.
Pratt hosted a block party in Baldwin Village on Saturday, complete with barbecue food, free merch, and American-flag lawn chairs. Yet he spent much of the event off to the side, listening to the concerns of Black residents. In one of the more tense moments of the day. Pratt’s visit to Jim Gilliam Park put him close to the frustration that often lives beneath campaign smiles.
Erica Helon, a 40-year-old bus driver, told him that nothing seems to change after people arrive asking for support. “Most people that come here and want our vote — we give y’all our vote; we’re still living like this. Nothing changes,” she said.
Pratt, wearing a beige suit and a hat stylized like the L.A. Lakers logo, emphasized that he was there to listen rather than to demand votes. He pulled Helon aside and gave her his personal phone number so they could talk more. “I’m here because I want to be a voice for the community,” he said at one point. “I’m here because I don’t know what I don’t know.”.
Helon, who is still undecided, left the event open-minded about Pratt. “I would love to see what he’s going to do for this city,” she said.
The campaigns are sprinting toward Tuesday’s hotly contested primary election with their candidates close enough that a late shift could move the whole map.
Recent polls placed Pratt and Raman within striking distance of Bass, who had held a substantial lead earlier in the campaign. A survey co-sponsored by The Times had Bass at 26%, Raman at 25%, and Pratt at 22%, with a roughly 3% margin of error in either direction and 10% of voters undecided.
Under the rules for Tuesday’s jungle primary, the top two candidates advance to a November runoff unless one candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.
On Sunday, Raman kept her plan-centric campaign moving through recognizable neighborhoods and tight meetings. Wearing jeans and a chartreuse cardigan. she greeted bike riders at a Sawtelle coffee shop and spoke to a phone bank group at UCLA. She told a group of United Auto Workers-represented graduate students from multiple nearby universities that the work happening in real time—without the weight of party infrastructure—could still carry her message. “It is absolutely essential to making sure that our little campaign. without all the political machine behind us. without MAGA millions behind us. that our vision of Los Angeles still manages to get out to the people. and your work today is an essential part of that. ” she said.
About two dozen students spoke to potential voters associated with the UAW. urging them to mark Raman’s name on their ballots by Tuesday. Stephanie Wert. a 30-year-old psychology graduate student at UCLA and head steward for UAW. said the outcome could come down to small margins. “This vote is going to be decided on the margins. and so I think we could really make the difference that pushes her to the runoff. ” Wert said.
Raman’s Sunday schedule also included lunch with a group of Korean American Democrats in Koreatown, Encinofest, a block party in Silver Lake, and a visit to Boyle Heights.
Bass, meanwhile, spent her weekend winding down after union rallies, but her campaign stayed rooted in community stops. After a day of labor events. she ate tacos at Yosemite Recreation Center’s picnic tables in Eagle Rock with several local politicians. including Councilmember Monica Rodriguez and county Democratic Party Chair Mark Ramos. California Attorney General Rob Bonta and L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna joined Bass earlier in the day. Luna missed out on the picnic but still enjoyed tacos in his car.
On Sunday, Bass held a more intimate moment—peeking around the back doors of a supporter’s Venice home as several dozen supporters cheered. Many people there said they saw real improvements in the homeless populations around their neighborhood during Bass’ tenure as mayor.
Tatiana Barhar, a Venice resident for over 30 years, described an “extreme” homelessness problem getting better during Bass’ term, crediting the Inside Safe program. “I want to support her,” she said. “I think there’s a lot more she can do.”
Bass brought her pitch back to crime, homelessness, and her development efforts in the city’s entertainment core. She spoke of 1960s-level crime rates. thousands of unhoused people pulled off the street into housing. and efforts to build up Hollywood during her time as mayor. “We got a lot to do,” Bass said. “We have such a bright future in the nation’s second-largest city. and I hope that you will continue to be there with me as we win.”.
Pratt’s Sunday, by contrast, was harder to pin down. His campaign emphasized a preference for smaller moments with L.A. communities instead of an influencer-heavy media frenzy like the ones seen in some of his earlier, more widely publicized events.
One of those smaller scenes unfolded Sunday morning at a community event in a Latino neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles. Pratt also spent Thursday in New York for national media interviews aimed at reaching as many people as possible.
Even as the candidates separated themselves with different styles—Bass with union rallies and a record of municipal programs. Raman with detailed policy and phone banking energy. Pratt with neighborhood listening—the underlying question for voters remained the same as Tuesday approaches: whether the next mayor will look and feel like what each community says it still needs.
Los Angeles mayoral primary Karen Bass Nithya Raman Spencer Pratt UCLA phone bank United Auto Workers homelessness Inside Safe program union rallies Baldwin Village Erica Helon