The surprising, cut-throat race for Los Angeles mayor

Karen Bass has never lost an election. But this fall, she faces the fight of her political life.

Bass has roughly a month to convince voters that she should be elected to a second term as the mayor of Los Angeles. Given Angelenos’ broad dissatisfaction with the direction of the city, approval ratings on par with Donald Trump’s and a wave of anti-establishment sentiment sweeping American politics, she has a formidable challenge in city council member Nithya Raman.

Chances are it’s not where Bass, who came back to run Los Angeles after a long and successful political career in Sacramento and Washington, had imagined she’d be. First there was Raman’s surprise entry into the race – hours before the filing deadline – then Bass’s decisive victory in the primary, when she eliminated the candidacy of TV personality Spencer Pratt.

But with mere weeks to go, several polls have Bass trailing, some narrowly and some with wider margins.

Los Angeles is a deeply blue city and the mayor’s race has become a bitter battle between two progressives who have come to represent the clashing wings of the Democratic party.

Raman has the endorsement of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and is a longtime member of the chapter. Its large network of volunteers are knocking on doors across the city in the lead-up to the election, seeking to appeal to a multiracial coalition of working-class Angelenos and renters.

Bass too is seeking to shore up her base. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late September, she was in the middle of a marathon day of campaigning across Los Angeles with stops at six churches, a volunteer appreciation event and four more gatherings scheduled for the evening.

“I’ll be going until about nine,” she said, seated at a picnic table in Ernest E Debs regional park on the city’s east side, after spending an hour greeting supporters. Her days are packed with campaign events and mayoral duties, she said, including leading the city’s transportation authority. “I have no idea what being bored is.”

It’s a busy election season for both candidates. They both spoke at forums hosted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Jewish Federation Los Angeles in September. The pair are tied in fundraising, with each campaign raising about $2.5m.

Nithya Raman’s campaign did not respond to a request for an interview.

In early 2026, Bass appeared to be catching a break. For a year, she had faced persistent criticism over the city’s preparation and response to the Palisades fire in January 2025, as well as the fact that she was traveling abroad when the disaster began.

Her popularity had begun to rebound after the Trump administration’s crackdown on anti-ICE protests in the summer of that year, and mass immigration raids across the region.

Bass had spoken out forcefully against the operations, praising the role immigrants from around the world play in Los Angeles, and at one point personally confronted border patrol agents who had deployed to a park in an immigrant neighborhood. Her response appeared to be shaped by her years of experience organizing and deep ties to immigrant groups, and was appreciated by many in the city.

By February of this year, several competitors, including the billionaire Rick Caruso, who faced off against Bass during her first run, had announced that they would not challenge her, easing the mayor’s path to victory. It also presented an opening.

Nithya Raman, a progressive urban planner, had been on the Los Angeles city council since 2020. The DSA member shocked the political establishment that year when she beat out an incumbent Democrat backed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Bass supported Raman’s bid for re-election to the council in 2024, and in 2026 the city councillor backed Bass’s re-election, calling her the most progressive mayor the city had ever seen.

Hours before the filing deadline, however, Raman opted to run against Bass, surprising both allies and opponents. She told a reporter she felt the “call from Los Angeles … for change across the entire city”.

Raman’s bid was initially a long shot, many political analysts agreed. Key portions of the city’s liberal base and large unions had already aligned with Bass.

As the primary race unfolded over spring, it was Spencer Pratt who grabbed headlines. The former reality TV star and registered Republican decided to run for office after losing his home in the Palisades, arguing Los Angeles leaders were mismanaging the city, failed to do enough to prepare for the fire and were falling short in helping residents recover.

He offered raw criticism of Bass, and his ads frequently went viral. Pratt’s performance in a debate appeared to boost his campaign as he sparred with the mayor while Raman struggled to find her footing and had comparatively little airtime. Donald Trump endorsed Pratt, a development political commentators said would hurt his candidacy in the deeply Democratic city.

Bass emerged as the frontrunner in the contest and, initially, as Pratt appeared on track to upend the race, Raman seemed almost prepared to lose. Nearly a week after polls closed, it became clear she had narrowly eked out a win, beating Pratt by about 3.5%.

The months that followed were largely quiet, noted Zev Yaroslavsky, the director of the Los Angeles initiative at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“We had a whole summer where there was, at least to the average person, no campaign out there. Only this last week did advertising start to appear on television,” Yaroslavsky said in late September.

Now with ballots already on their way to voters, the final days of the election are fast approaching and Bass and Raman are eager to highlight their different approaches to voters.

Their divide could be seen during a recent forum hosted by the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, in which Bass said she didn’t believe the term genocide was appropriate to describe Israel’s actions during the war in Gaza. Raman, who said she used the term after looking to experts, faced questions about an interview earlier this year with the streamer Hasan Piker and her relationship with DSA.

In response, Raman called herself an “independent voice”, pointing to her disagreements and collaboration with DSA, and describing it as a big tent organization

Raman picked up endorsements from the nearly 6,000-member DSA LA in September, as well as the Unite Here union. Rae Huang, another DSA member, had run in the primary, and the organization opted in the spring not to support any candidate. The decision to back Raman came after significant debate – she has been a DSA member for years but the organization censured her in 2024 for pursuing an endorsement from a Democrats for Israel group.

Yet, the chapter praised Raman for working “tirelessly to lower housing costs and build more housing”, championing tenant protections and reforming how the city responds to homelessness, pointing to the drop in unsheltered homelessness in her district.

The endorsement was a major win. Polling has indicated the majority of Democrats in the city view DSA positively and the organization has a large number of committed and experienced field workers, said Fernando Guerra, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and director of the school’s Center for the Study of Los Angeles.

The operation was on display during a crowded postcarding event at Los Angeles Ale Works in late September and a canvassing operation in the westside community of Sawtelle. There is excitement around Raman, DSA members Patrick Padilla and Keshav Kunsassery said, with unprecedented numbers of people showing up to field training.

During canvassing, they said, they have found that the organization’s platform has broad appeal – including among many people who don’t identify as democratic socialists.

“We’re coming to find that the status quo has not been serving everyday working Americans. And when I’m on the doors, I’m talking to people. People are just focused on how they can get by day to day,” Padilla said.

In Sawtelle on a recent Saturday, Padilla and a group of five others gathered to prepare for door-knocking in the area. Organizers walked two first-time volunteers through training, advising them to “knock friendly” and that the activity was about “talking to your neighbors”. “If they’re a no, don’t push,” one facilitator said. This forms a core pillar of DSA’s operation and will be crucial for their candidates in the coming weeks.

DSA has made major gains in Los Angeles and across the US, most notably with the victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York. The wave of wins is not just about DSA, Guerra argued, it’s about the anti-incumbent sentiment that has surged in recent years.

“It’s the political establishment that people are voting against. And of course, [Bass] represents that,” Guerra said.

Earlier this year, a survey published by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs found that Los Angeles county residents’ satisfaction with their quality of life had reached the lowest levels in more than a decade.

Although it is not the hellscape that Donald Trump and high-profile Republicans portray it to be, the region faces real challenges common to major cities across the country, including rising costs and housing affordability. The city is one of the most expensive in the US for renters and homebuyers alike.

While there has been a 17.5% reduction in people living on the streets under Bass, homelessness remains an entrenched problem, with nearly 44,000 unhoused people. Residents are frustrated about the region’s handling of the crisis.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint agency of the city and county, has been under increased scrutiny in recent months, both locally and by the Trump administration. The county announced this year that it would seek a financial review of the agency over its delayed payments to service providers. An audit released earlier this year found issues with the agency’s bookkeeping and accounting. The federal government suspended funding to LAHSA in June.

Meanwhile, federal officials recently arrested two LA homelessness non-profit workers for allegedly misappropriating millions in taxpayer dollars.

Recent years have been particularly difficult, with the Trump administration’s deportation campaign hitting the region hard and Hollywood struggling. The city is also grappling with a huge budget shortfall.

Raman has argued she is the candidate who can “meet this moment with honesty and urgency” while lowering rents, improving city streets, reducing homelessness and keeping Angelenos safe.

“We can fight for a bigger, more joyful future for Los Angeles,” Raman has said.

Bass is in a difficult position with low approval ratings, Yaroslavsky said, and serving as mayor is often thankless.

“The mayor gets no credit for the things that go well, gets all the blame for the things that go wrong,” he said

But the race isn’t over yet.

Bass needs to articulate her vision for the city to win over voters and distinguish herself from Raman, said Yaroslavsky, who served on the LA city council and county board of supervisors for decades.

To win, she’ll have to appeal to the unusually large share of undecided voters as well as those who supported Pratt, many of whom feel deeply disappointed in their options.

“Honestly, I don’t feel like there is a viable choice for a Spencer Pratt voter,” said Nina Madok, who lost her home in the Palisades fire and has worked on recovery efforts. Madok noted that Bass’s staff had been supportive and present for Palisades victims, but said neither candidate appealed to her.

It would take commonsense support and a recognition of the issues the city faces to get her backing, she said, adding that it would be a “hold your nose” vote.

“I would never say never. But something drastic would have to happen,” she said. Of course, Madok added, “we know that in LA anything could happen – an earthquake, a flood, an El Niño around the corner, another fire. We’d have to see.”

Bass is hopeful that her decades-long record in the city will propel her campaign forward.

She got her start as a physician assistant at LA county general hospital and founded Community Coalition, a non-profit that built collaborative relationships between the Black and Latino communities to tackle substance abuse and violence prevention. Bass served in the statehouse and Congress and was under consideration to be Joe Biden’s vice-presidential candidate.

At Debs park in September, a line of elected officials and community advocates rallied for the mayor as part of a Latinos con Bass volunteer appreciation event, while she stood among them wearing a Dodgers jersey and blue-and-white Nikes.

“I’ve known her [since] she was an organizer. And she’s always been an organizer. So she’s just organizing in a different place,” said Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (Chirla). “Fighting for LA is not something that is new to her.”

A few hundred people gathered around park tables and food booths to hear Bass and her supporters speak, as families barbecued nearby. The speakers highlighted Bass’s record and criticized Raman, suggesting her decision to run was opportunistic.

Bass still has deep pockets of support throughout the city.

“She’s trying to make things better for the people, the city. She’s for the community,” said Joe Alcala, who attended the event with his granddaughter. “I’m so busy right now, I don’t even know who her opponent is.”

People typically tune in to elections late, Bass noted as she sat down with the Guardian after the event, but they are beginning to pay attention. Asked about the wave of wins for progressive candidates, Bass said that she understood that people were demoralized and angry. She described herself as a lifelong progressive “fighting for change and not just blindly following the system”.

“[I have] 45 days of making sure that I am visiting all of the places I’ve worked in a good part of my life, reminding people of what we have done and reminding people of what we’re going to do in the future,” she said. “Because an election is about the future, it’s not about the past.”