L.A. mayoral – With the Nov. 3 runoff set between Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman, both candidates have already launched sharp attacks on police hiring, homeless encampments near schools, homelessness and public safety. Despite sharing positions on diverting
For the second week in a row, Los Angeles voters have been asked to choose between two Democrats who sound as if they’re running from the same party playbook—and then spend their first days in the runoff tearing at each other’s record.
At her campaign kickoff Tuesday at East End Studios in the city’s Arts District. Mayor Karen Bass framed the November 3 matchup as a test of direction. “This November. voters will have a clear choice between myself and Nithya Raman. a difference that is made crystal clear because we have been changing L.A. while some people including the councilwoman … fought to take L.A. backwards,” Bass said.
Her message landed right on the pressure points she’s already used: police hiring and the fight over whether homeless encampments should be kept away from schools. Bass blasted Raman shortly after mail-in results made clear that Raman would edge out Spencer Pratt to challenge her in the fall election. In a scorching statement. Bass accused Raman of voting against police hiring and opposing efforts to keep homeless encampments away from schools.
Raman. who described Bass as part of a status quo city voters rejected. fired back with her own charge during the primary. She accused Bass of engaging in “pay to play” politics. and said special interests who benefited from the mayor’s decisions—including the police union. business groups and Airbnb—spent big on Bass’s reelection. Monday night, after the Associated Press determined that she would make the runoff, Raman doubled down. “For too long. City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections. ” Raman said in a statement. “Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services, and a city that has stopped working for them.”.
Even so, the two campaigns can’t ignore where they overlap. Bass and Raman are aligned on a set of major city policies that both describe as progress: diverting some 911 calls away from the Los Angeles Police Department and shifting them to unarmed responders; moving homeless people into housing; and rewriting Measure ULA. the city’s tax on high-end property sales. to spur apartment construction.
That overlap is part of why the runoff may turn into something uglier than a typical left-versus-left contest. “Neither of them can move credibly that far to the middle,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP political strategist in Sacramento. “So can Bass scare more centrist voters away from Raman?. Or is Raman able to grab them, because they’re convinced Bass is utterly incompetent?”.
Either way, Stutzman predicted what many L.A. voters are already bracing for: “I expect we’re in for a very negative campaign.”
The tone was visible in Tuesday’s kickoff. Bass criticized Raman for opposing a law that keeps homeless encampments at least 500 feet from schools. Bass also accused Raman of being MIA in efforts to protect Hollywood jobs.
Raman’s response aimed at the other side of the same ledger: she told voters Bass has claimed the city is improving while her record. in Raman’s view. shows something different. “An overwhelming majority of Angelenos just voted to replace the current mayor because they’re sick of the status quo—and so am I. ” Raman said in a statement.
Her camp also pointed to what it calls comprehensive planning on homelessness, public safety and the entertainment industry. Raman said Bass’s approach has failed to match the urgency of what the city faces.
The runoff math will matter, but the campaigns aren’t acting like numbers are the only issue. Both candidates now have to court the chunk of the electorate that backed Pratt, who finished third with nearly all votes counted.
Michael Schneider, a Raman supporter and chief executive of the advocacy group Streets For All—which pushes for bus lanes, bicycle lanes and other improvements to city streets—summed up the mood with a blunt warning: “It’s going to be a knife fight.”
As the attacks trade across public safety, homelessness and the future of Hollywood, there’s another reason the stakes feel especially sharp: this will be the first time since 2005 that a sitting L.A. mayor has been forced into a runoff.
And Bass’s position has taken additional damage from the Palisades fire.
The mayor continues to face political fallout from the January 2025 Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. Bass was out of the country when the fire broke out, and her handling of recovery has drawn criticism.
Pacific Palisades resident Hank Wright, whose home was destroyed in last year’s fire, voted for Pratt in the primary. Now that Pratt is out of the race, Wright said he isn’t satisfied with the options in the runoff. He called the choices “disaster to catastrophic.”
Wright said Bass has been terrible for the city and is a major reason his home is gone. But despite that anger, he said he plans to vote for Bass anyway, out of concern about Raman’s record and her ties to the Democratic Socialists of America.
Wright said the DSA supported Raman during her first two council campaigns and recommended her in its most recent voter guide. “Nithya would be catastrophic,” he said. He also said he backs the city law prohibiting encampments near schools and disagrees with the DSA’s push to cut police spending.
Pratt’s campaign loomed over the runoff even as he disappeared from it. The onetime star of MTV’s “The Hills” used his campaign to express anger not only over the Palisades disaster but also the city’s handling of homelessness. crime and other issues. Bass has already made public safety a central contrast point against Raman, echoing a theme that Pratt amplified.
Still, not every expert expects the Bass-Raman fight to be simply about who can scare voters best.
Fernando Guerra. who runs the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. warned that Bass could place herself in peril if she veers too far to the right—especially in November. when the number of left-leaning voters is expected to increase dramatically. By then, Guerra said, the Democratic Socialists of America may have endorsed Raman, putting its voter outreach operation into action.
“The city is clearly moving to the left. You cannot tack to the right. This is a new era,” Guerra said.
Raman, who declared “defund the police” during her first winning campaign in 2020, has said she is moderating her views. Two days after launching her mayoral campaign, she said the LAPD should not shrink any further. Appearing last month in Sherman Oaks. Raman said she would not. as mayor. stand in the way of council members who are looking to create new no-camping zones in their districts.
That stance sits alongside her voting record. While in office, Raman voted dozens of times against establishing new no-camping zones near homeless shelters, senior centers, freeway overpasses and other locations.
Even with that complexity, a Raman victory would represent a political shift for Los Angeles—placing the city’s first DSA member in the mayor’s office. It could also be part of a larger realignment that’s already playing out across City Hall.
The changes are visible in other races and endorsements. Voters delivered a big victory to City Controller Kenneth Mejia, whose reelection was also recommended by the DSA. Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy. the DSA-endorsed candidate in the city attorney’s race. was running well ahead of her runoff opponent. Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, according to recent returns.
Two DSA-endorsed council members—Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez—won easy victories over their respective challengers in the prior primary.
Sean Wakasa, who co-chairs DSA’s Los Angeles chapter, said he is excited to see Raman make the runoff and is hopping that his chapter will endorse her. “So far, no decisions have been made,” he said.
The runoff also underlines how quickly political relationships in Los Angeles have shifted in the past year. Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, had been a Bass ally until recently, endorsing Bass’s reelection bid.
Last year, Raman told The Times that Bass was the most progressive mayor in city history. Bass helped Raman during a difficult reelection fight in 2024, pushing for the Los Angeles County Democratic Party to endorse Raman and appearing in the candidate’s videos and campaign mailers.
When Raman launched her mayoral campaign, she criticized Bass’s progress on homelessness and affordability and argued that the city “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
Raman is also positioned to compete for voters who backed other left-leaning figures in the primary. She is more likely than Bass to pick up the voters who chose community organizer Rae Huang. a leftist who. like Raman. is a DSA member. She also has a shot at voters who went for tech entrepreneur Adam Miller. who ran on the idea that he would manage the city better than Bass.
So far, Miller and Huang have not publicly revealed who, if anyone, they plan to endorse.
Long before the campaigns have to persuade anyone. Bass and Raman have already begun what both sides seem to expect will be a campaign defined by sharp contrast. The shared policies are real. but the attacks are already sharper—and in a runoff where undecided voters and former Pratt supporters will decide the outcome. the campaigns are moving like every vote will come with a price.
Los Angeles mayoral runoff Karen Bass Nithya Raman Spencer Pratt homelessness police hiring 500 feet from schools law Measure ULA divert 911 calls Democratic Socialists of America Palisades fire Hollywood jobs