L.A. politics fractures as Bass faces left and right

L.A. politics – Mayor Karen Bass’s bid for reelection is being tested from both sides of Los Angeles politics, as Democratic Socialists of America-backed Councilwoman Nithya Raman presses from the left and Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt challenges from the right. Th

By the time the next election arrives, Los Angeles voters may not be arguing about party labels at all—they may be weighing whether the system that has ruled City Hall for decades can still deliver.

As Mayor Karen Bass seeks reelection. her standing is colliding with two very different threats: attacks from the left by Democratic Socialists of America Councilwoman Nithya Raman and from the right by Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt. The pressure comes as poll after poll shows residents frustrated with the status quo. according to political experts who say Los Angeles’ once-stable coalition politics are unraveling.

“Overwhelmingly, Angelenos feel Los Angeles doesn’t work,” Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said. “You have this liberal regime that has dominated from ‘73 to ‘26 and it’s stagnant.”

The frustration has taken on a sharper edge as mounting housing costs create new fault lines in the city of 3.9 million. The devastating 2025 wildfires, ongoing homelessness, declining city infrastructure and traffic have all deepened discontent.

Bass, political observers say, still has paths to win. It’s still possible for her to pull off reelection in the nonpartisan mayoral race. and some coalition of centrist Democrats could survive. But Guerra cautioned that Bass is unlikely to avoid a runoff—a stark sign. he said. that mainstream Democratic institutions in Los Angeles may be hollowing out.

“The problem is not Bass,” Guerra said, adding: “Any regime that lasts for that long begins to fall upon itself. … It stagnates and stops being innovative, and just becomes protective of the ingrained interests that have nurtured that coalition.”

The challenge from the right is driven in part by Pratt’s social-media-fueled critique of emergency preparation and response after the wildfires. as well as criticism of high spending on homeless programs. Republicans hope that kind of message can bring a new generation of conservative Angelenos to the polls.

Many observers, though, doubt that conservatism will become Los Angeles’ future direction. Jim Newton, executive director of UCLA Blueprint magazine and a veteran political journalist who worked for the L.A. Times for 25 years, said the leftward turn is already real.

“L.A. is clearly a city that is steadily moving to the left,” Newton said.

Guerra agreed on the motivation but not on the destination. “People are unhappy, but they’re not unhappy enough to vote for a Republican,” he said. “They have been looking at the other alternatives: the Democratic Socialist party that is the challenge to the establishment.”

For the Democratic Socialists of America, the strategy has been about turning policy positions into electoral reach. The decentralized anti-capitalist group advocates for rental protections, defunding the police and a Green New Deal. Over the last six years, Angelenos elected four DSA-backed City Council members and a DSA-recommended city controller.

Still. even as momentum seems to be building for DSA priorities. some warn that Los Angeles’ next political map may not be settled. Raphael Sonenshein. executive director of the Haynes Foundation and author of “Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles. ” said sweeping generational changes are taking place and that predicting the final outcome may be premature.

“I think everything is up for grabs. ” Sonenshein said. noting that he expected more competition for Latino and Asian voters. young voters and even older Democrats. “Certainly, younger voters are completely up for grabs. It’s just hard to know where they’re going to end up. … Small shifts in the primary can make a very big difference.”.

That sense of volatility is part of the city’s longer history. Los Angeles rose as a Republican stronghold of California, after a massive influx of white Midwesterners descended on L.A. following the 1885 opening of the Santa Fe railroad. Conservative white civic leaders—along with owners of the L.A. Times—promoted the city as a GOP counterpart to progressive, union-friendly San Francisco.

The Bradley coalition was built to break that pattern. Sonenshein said the purpose of the coalition was to “break open the stranglehold of a city establishment that was … unresponsive to the diversity of the community.” In 1973. Tom Bradley became L.A.’s first Black mayor by assembling Black. Jewish. white and Latino liberals into a coalition that ended decades of conservative white rule at City Hall.

Bradley’s election began what, for the most part, became a 50-year reign of moderate Democrats. Year after year, the election map changed, but liberal centrists usually remained on top. Bradley’s ability to bridge racial divides was often credited. As a police community relations officer, he cultivated relationships with Jewish business owners. He was an early supporter of L.A.’s first Latino City Council member. Edward Roybal. and had already united Black and Jewish Angelenos in the 10th District as the city’s first Black City Council member.

As new immigrants continued to move into the city, Bradley brought more Latinos and Asian Americans into the fold. A conscious alliance of minority communities reelected him, helping him become the longest-serving mayor in L.A. history.

But the coalition began to buckle in the 1990s as frustration swelled over crime, pollution and poverty. Bradley’s popularity plummeted after Black motorist Rodney King was brutally beaten by LAPD officers in 1991. and riots erupted across the city the next year after a largely white jury acquitted the officers. More than 60 people were killed.

When Bradley prepared to step down. Democrats struggled to find a successor who could unite liberal Black. white. Latino and Asian Angelenos. Some were skeptical that Richard Riordan—a Republican venture capitalist—would win. Newton said Riordan was a moderate. easygoing philanthropist and that Republicans at the time made up 30% of L.A.’s registered voters. double their number now. Even so. Newton said. there were those who felt “this is just not what this city is. the city doesn’t need a multimillionaire white guy Republican.”.

Voters chose differently. After securing support of San Fernando Valley Republicans and Democratic centrists and making small inroads among Latinos, Riordan became the first Republican L.A. mayor elected in 36 years.

The political order that Bradley helped create did not simply carry forward. Sonenshein described the Bradley coalition as “a spent force,” though he also said new players were emerging in prominent roles, working to forge new types of alliances and, at times, temporary coalitions.

By the 1990s, Latino participation in L.A. politics surged after California voters in 1994 passed Proposition 187, which barred undocumented immigrants from receiving many public services. Asian Americans also began to rise.

Yet after Bradley, there was no single Democratic coalition across the city. Sonenshein pointed to the way each mayoral campaign stitched together different support bases: when Antonio Villaraigosa challenged James Hahn in 2001 and 2005. Hahn drew support from the Black community and the Valley while Villaraigosa drew support from Latinos and liberals. When Eric Garcetti defeated Wendy Greuel in 2013. Greuel had strong support in Black South L.A. but Garcetti won with the white and Latino vote.

“People have to piece it together, because the Democrats have such a larger edge in L.A. than they did in Bradley’s age,” Sonenshein said. “It’s almost a kind of entrepreneurial thing: You’ve got to go out and build a majority each time, and those alliances shift.”

Even as challenges from the right remained, one moment suggested Republicans could still disrupt the Democratic lock. In 2022. billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso ran against Bass on a centrist law-and-order platform. then switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic. Some saw the switch as a recognition that a Republican could not win in L.A. Bass defeated Caruso by nearly 10 percentage points.

Like Bradley, Bass is often described as pragmatic, with a long record of forging relationships behind the scenes. In the 1990s, she founded the grassroots Community Coalition to combat public health crises that plagued South L.A. amid the crack-cocaine epidemic.

But Bass now presides over a City Hall almost entirely dominated by Democrats, and discontent is spreading anyway. Polls show a substantial portion of the electorate views her unfavorably because of her handling of the Palisades fire.

For Guerra, housing is where the stakes have shifted most sharply. He said the lack of affordable housing created a unique moment: even after the King riots, the Northridge earthquake and the O.J. Simpson trial, Angelenos were still invested in living in the city.

“You could still buy a home. You could still see yourself nurturing L.A., but also L.A. nurturing you,” Guerra said.

Now, he argued, centrist Democrats have been so successful at inclusion that they struggle to identify priorities. Guerra said centrist governance is slowed by internal veto points—too many members of the coalition, too many with leverage.

“There are too many members of the coalition and there are too many of the members who have veto power, which then leads to paralysis,” Guerra said. “The paralysis is what’s led to the lack of innovation, the failure to pursue policies that make sense for the greater good.”

He said dysfunction shows up especially clearly on housing. “Every NIMBY in every neighborhood, in every council district, is like, ‘We want housing, but not here,’” Guerra said. “That, replicated everywhere, leads to paralysis and no housing.”

Renters have become a rising political constituency—a big shift from the Bradley era, when homeowners were the city’s dominant voters.

That change, though, is not automatically translating into greater representation for working-class Angelenos. Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College, described how the middle class is splintering along generational lines.

“Middle-class young folks graduating from college, who have extraordinary amounts of debt, cannot buy homes,” she said.

Sadhwani said the city still has issues with food insecurity and low-wage worker protections, but that those problems are not dominating public politics in the same way now.

While Los Angeles Democrats have long focused on assembling coalitions of Black, Latino, Asian American and other minority activists, Sadhwani said what was often not spoken about was the role of the city’s “nonprofit industrial complex.”

“Nonprofits have a huge role,” she said, noting that Bass came of that world. “Their politics are shifting.”

Before 2020, Sadhwani said, progressives emphasized racial justice, immigration reform, and creating an economy that respects the work of immigrants. Now, she said, focus has largely shifted toward homelessness and policing.

“What it means to be a progressive today,” Sadhwani said, “is actually quite different from what it was to be a progressive even just five years ago.”

Republicans, for their part, argue that Los Angeles voters are not moving in lockstep with liberal activists. They point to Donald Trump’s share of the vote in Los Angeles in the last three presidential elections: 16% in 2016, 21% in 2020, and 27% in 2024.

They also point to evidence at the county level that voters are questioning some criminal justice reforms. In 2024, L.A. County voters ousted progressive incumbent Dist. Atty. George Gascón, who eliminated cash bail for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies and championed rehabilitation over punitive sentencing. A majority of county voters also backed Proposition 36. allowing stiffer penalties for crimes of repeat theft and possession of hard drugs.

With Republicans making up about 15% of L.A.’s registered voters, GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said Pratt might win enough independent voters and disaffected Democrats to make it past the primary. Stutzman said Pratt would then struggle to get more than 50% in the runoff.

“The math just isn’t there, but in addition to that it’s the stink of Trump,” Stutzman said. “The tribal politics of today make a Republican victory in L.A. very difficult.”

On the left, Raman’s rise is tied to the DSA’s effort to expand influence through elections. Newton said Raman stunned the political establishment in 2020, when she was elected L.A.’s first DSA-backed City Council member. As she runs for mayor. the Los Angeles chapter of the DSA hopes to expand its power as it endorses a new slate of 2026 candidates for City Council. city attorney and L.A. school board.

Raman is clearly betting that a big, viable part of the electorate is to Bass’ left, Newton said.

But Guerra said the DSA’s internal fracture could limit the movement’s gains. Newton said the DSA had done a good job in recent years identifying renters’ interests and advancing them to usher in a “newer. younger. probably more progressive edge to the city’s politics.” Guerra said the DSA’s failure to rally around a 2026 mayoral candidate could hurt the movement for several election cycles.

“This dissension is setting them back,“ Guerra said. “They really do have an opportunity to elect a DSA mayor.”

Raman’s relationship with the broader group has also been a challenge. Newton said Raman and her fellow City Council members were caught off guard when she entered the mayoral race just before the filing deadline. In March, the L.A. chapter of the DSA announced it would recommend Raman for mayor, but not formally endorse her. This month, a trio of her fellow DSA-backed City Council members endorsed Bass.

Bass has seized on that fracture as she defends her own record and argues that Raman struggles with coalition-building inside City Hall. Bass said recently. “If you want to be the mayor and you can’t get along with people who are your colleagues on council. ” “I don’t know how you’re supposed to govern at all.”.

The friction is now built into the race itself: Bass is being squeezed by a left that argues for sharper change and by a right that argues officials failed during emergencies. At the same time. the historical story of Los Angeles politics—coalitions rising. shifting. and sometimes breaking apart—hangs over every campaign.

In the end, the next mayor may not be decided solely by whether Bass can energize her traditional base. The central question is whether a new generation can find a way to represent a mass of Angelenos with bold new visions and coalitions of their own.

Los Angeles politics Karen Bass Nithya Raman Spencer Pratt Democratic Socialists of America L.A. mayoral race housing costs 2025 wildfires homelessness City Hall coalition runoff election