Incumbent Karen Bass Advances to Runoff in L.A. Mayoral Race

Incumbent Karen Bass will advance to a November runoff election in the Los Angeles mayoral race after finishing as the top candidate in the city’s nonpartisan primary on Tuesday.

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“I appreciate you for standing with me when others doubted me, because you know who I am,” Bass told supporters after she successfully punched her ticket for the runoff. “I have devoted my entire life to serving the city that I love, where I was born, and I’m going to continue to do that all the way to victory in November.”

It was not immediately clear who she would be facing in the runoff, though Republican reality star Spencer Pratt was second in early returns.

Pratt, who served as the villain on The Hills, entered the race because of his outrage over the city’s handling of the Palisades wildfire, which claimed his home.

The devastating fire, and homelessness, emerged as two major issues in the race. 

Bass’s challengers repeatedly called out her absence from the city during the January 2025 wildfire. Bass left L.A. for Ghana on January 4, 2025, to attend the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama as part of a presidential delegation.

During the one and only mayoral debate last month, Bass called the fire “horrible” and said it was one of the “worst moments of my life to not be here when my city needed me.” 

“To me, it reminds me of like, if you’re away and a family member is in an accident,” she added, implying that the she had no way to predict that a fire might break out while she was away.

But the makings of a natural disaster were already in place by the time Bass boarded her departing flight. On January 2, 2025, the National Interagency Fire Center issued a warning for “above normal significant fire potential” in Southern California. 

And on January 3, the National Weather Service issued a “red flag warning” for Los Angeles and Ventura counties, describing the weather event as a “particularly dangerous situation” due to anticipated strong winds and low humidity.

Bass also defended her record on homelessness, saying the city has seen a decrease in homelessness under her leadership. However, the city continues to have one of the largest, if not the largest, number of people living on the streets of any city in the country.

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Raman, for her part, had advocated to bring homeless people indoors. Pratt took a different approach, calling for more resources to tackle drug addiction, which he pointed to as the driving cause behind the city’s homelessness crisis.

Bass, who entered politics in 2004 as a California state assemblywoman, has never lost an election. She ultimately became speaker of the assembly before successfully running for Congress in 2010. After serving six terms in the House, she was elected to lead Los Angeles in 2022.

Raman, meanwhile, had initially endorsed Bass before entering the race herself just before the deadline in February. Raman, an urban planner by trade, has served on the city council since 2020 and currently chairs the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee. She was formerly endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Polling leading up to the election showed a tight race; Bass led with 26 percent of the vote, following by Raman at 25 percent and Pratt at 22 percent, according to a UC Berkeley–Los Angeles Times poll.

That most recent poll showed Bass dropping 1 percent from March, while Raman and Pratt each gained 8 points.

Meanwhile, the California gubernatorial race remained too close to call on Wednesday morning, though former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Fox News host Steve Hilton emerged as the top two vote-getters in early returns among a crowded field of 61 candidates.

Ahead of Election Day, Becerra, Hilton and progressive billionaire Tom Steyer polled as frontrunners.

The race was shaken up back in April when frontrunner Eric Swalwell suspended his own gubernatorial bid following several sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell’s exit boosted Becerra, the other leading establishment Democrat in the race.

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