In Unlikely Turn, Law and Order Heats Up L.A. Mayor's Race

Two Democratic candidates choose opposite tacks on public safety and policing, seeking to corral undecided voters.

Like most big cities, Los Angeles has steep challenges: homelessness. Extreme weather. Housing affordability. Budget shortfalls. Law and order has for years been a relative bright spot. Not since the 1960s has the city experienced such a low homicide rate.

In an unlikely turn, however, public safety has emerged as an abrupt flashpoint in the city's fierce mayoral contest. Last Tuesday, Nithya Raman, the challenger, vowed to replace the police chief if elected. Two days later, Mayor Karen Bass stood next to the chief as they applauded a sweeping crackdown on drug dealing on Skid Row.

Points of contention between the two Democrats have included 911 wait times, who would best handle security for the 2028 Olympics and who did or did not use the words "fascist liar" to describe the police chief.

The traditional Republican argument that Democrats are soft on crime has been losing steam this election cycle as crime rates drop across the country. G.O.P. candidates are neverthelessi making a go of it in places like Michigan, where they are going after Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate race, and North Carolina, where Roy Cooper has been under attack in another Senate contest.

In liberal Los Angeles, though, politics are more blue-on-blue, and the usual dividing lines on law and order have been scrambled this year as a Democrat and a democratic socialist take different tacks on the police force as they vie for the city's top elected post.

In a year of resounding success for democratic socialists around the country, the election in the nation's second-largest city is also poised to test whether that organization has shed its image of demonizing the police that lingers from the days of protests over George Floyd's death.

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