Why the LA mayoral race is becoming a 'knife fight'

The gloves are off.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilwoman Nithya Raman just started running their ruff campaigns in Nov. 3, but they're already trading sharp songs about each other and their records.

“This November, the voters will have a clear choice between me and Nithya Raman, the difference is clearly defined because we have been changing LA, while other people including the councilor … are fighting to push LA back,” said Bass on Tuesday at his campaign launch event at East End Studios in the Arts District of this city.

Bass delivered his first speech over the weekend, as the count of mail-in ballots made it clear that Raman would edge out Spencer Pratt to challenge him in the fall election. A few minutes after the results came out, the mayor issued a fiery statement criticizing Raman for voting for police recruitment and efforts to keep homeless people out of schools.

Raman initially accused Bass of “pay-to-play” political involvement, saying special interests that benefited from the mayor's decisions — the police union, business associations and Airbnb — spent heavily on his reelection. Since then, he has described Bass as part of the status quo that voters reject.

“For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests who fund elections,” Raman said in a statement Monday night, after The Associated Press announced he would run. “Right now, working people are paying the price for high rents, depleted services, and a city that has stopped working for them.”

Despite the attacks, Bass and Raman are in line with a number of city policies. And because they agree on so many topics, their best strategy in this game will be to tear others down, said Rob Stutzman, a GOP political strategist in Sacramento.

“None of them can believably go to the middle of nowhere,” he said. “So is Bass able to intimidate many voters who are very close to Raman? Or is Raman able to hold them, because he believes Bass is totally incompetent?”

Either way, Stutzman said, “I expect we're in for a very bad campaign.”

Bass and Raman are both Democrats and self-described progressives. Both support an effort to divert 911 calls from the Los Angeles Police Department to unarmed responders. Both see a need to move the homeless into housing, and both said Measure ULA, the city's tax on the sale of luxury properties, needs to be rewritten to encourage apartment building.

Both candidates will have to convince a large number of voters to go with Pratt, who is in third place with almost all votes counted.

“It's going to be a knife fight,” said Michael Schneider, a Raman supporter and chief executive officer of the rights group Streets For All, which is pushing for bus lanes, bike lanes and other urban street improvements.

Bass, during Tuesday's kickoff, criticized Raman for opposing a law that keeps homeless people at least 500 feet from schools. He also accused Raman of being MIA in the struggle to secure Hollywood jobs.

Raman's camp responded that the council member has comprehensive plans to address homelessness, public safety and the plight of the entertainment industry.

“The majority of Angelenos just voted to replace the current mayor because they are sick of the status quo – and so am I,” Raman said in a statement.

Even before Tuesday's contest began, the mayoral race has been heating up.

Raman hit out at Bass repeatedly in his record, saying that the incumbent failed to speed up the repair of streets, roads and other infrastructure, the production of new apartments and the exit of Hollywood jobs.

A marked ballot for mayoral candidate Nithya Raman at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

The road ahead looks tricky for Bass, who was the first LA mayor to be forced into a race since 2005.

In a head-to-head race, Raman would lead Bass 32% to 28%, according to survey of registered voters conducted last month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, sponsored by The Times. The poll said that 25% will vote or not, while 15% are undecided.

Bass continues to face political turmoil since the Palisades fire in January 2025, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead. He was out of the country when the fire broke out and has drawn criticism for his handling of the recovery.

Pacific Palisades resident Hank Wright, whose home was destroyed last year, voted for Pratt in last week's primary. Now, since Pratt is out of office, he is not happy with his decisions in this competition, saying that they have gone from “disaster to disaster.”

He said Bass has been bad in this town and is the main reason his home is gone. Still, he now plans to vote for him, out of concern about Raman's record and his ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, which supported his first two congressional campaigns and recommended him in its latest voter guide.

Wright said he supports the city's ordinance banning camping near schools and disagrees with the DSA's goal of reducing the use of police.

“Nithya will be a disaster,” he said.

Pratt, a former star of MTV's “The Hills,” has used his campaign to express his anger not only at the Palisades tragedy but also at the city's handling of homelessness, crime and other issues. Bass is already beating Raman on public safety, an issue Pratt raised during his campaign.

Still, one expert warned that Bass would be putting himself at risk if he veered too far to the right — especially in November, when the number of left-leaning voters is expected to soar. Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America may have endorsed Raman, a member of the party, for its major voter outreach effort.

“The city is clearly going left. You can't interfere with the right. This is a new era,” said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Raman, who announced “defunding the police” in his first winning campaign in 2020, could stand for his views.

Two days after launching his campaign for mayor, he said the LAPD must not continue to be destroyed. Appearing last month in Sherman Oaks, he said that he, as mayor, will not stand in the way of council members looking to build new non-camping areas in their districts.

While in office, Raman has voted numerous times against the establishment of new non-camping areas near homeless shelters, senior centers, freeways and other areas.

Nevertheless, Raman's victory will represent a seismic shift for the city, placing the city's first DSA member in the mayor's office.

That may be part of a much larger political change.

Los Angeles City Administrator Kenneth Mejia, left, and Los Angeles City Council candidate Faizah Malik attend a campaign event March 15 in Westchester.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Voters recently delivered a landslide victory for City Administrator Kenneth Mejia, whose re-election was recommended by the DSA. Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy, nominated by DSA in the city attorney race, is running well ahead of her opponent, Deputy Dist. He said. John McKinney, according to the latest return.

On top of that, two DSA-endorsed council members – Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez – won easy victories over their rivals during last week's primary.

Sean Wakasa, DSA's LA chair, said he was thrilled to see Raman in the running and hoped his chapter would endorse him. So far, no decisions have been taken on that, he said.

The following sequence shows how much has changed in LA's political circles over the past year.

Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, until recently was Bass's running mate, allowing his bid for re-election. Last year, he told The Times that Bass was the most progressive mayor in the city's history.

Bass helped Raman during a tough 2024 re-election battle, pushing the Los Angeles County Democratic Party to endorse Raman and appear in election videos and campaign mailers.

During his campaign launch, Raman criticized Bass' progress on homelessness and affordability, and said the city “doesn't seem to be able to handle the basics.”

Raman is more likely than Bass to pick up voters who chose social organizer Rae Huang, who is on the left, like Raman, who is a member of the DSA. He also had a shot at voters going with tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who he thought would run the city better than Bass.

So far, Miller and Huang have not publicly disclosed who, if anyone, they plan to endorse.