LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and fellow Democrat Nithya Raman were tightly matched in early returns Wednesday, as voters weighed whether to replace the embattled incumbent with a challenger backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
The outcome will determine if the nation's second most populous city will follow the lead of New York, where democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor last year.
The first votes counted after polls closed showed Bass with a slight lead. But in each of several small updates to the count, Raman gained ground. The challenger eventually slipped ahead and held a slim advantage in a tally early Wednesday.
An estimated one-third of the ballots remained uncounted.
The turnaround was an unwelcome sign for Bass, since later-arriving votes tend to come from younger, diverse, more liberal voters, a constituency Raman has courted throughout the campaign.
Democratic consultant Paul Mitchell estimated that Bass — the establishment candidate, with Raman running to her left — would have needed an 8-point cushion on election night to buffer the expected late rush of left-tilting votes.
“Everyone understands that in Los Angeles there is a traditional blue shift,” Mitchell said in a text, referring to late-arriving votes. In a race of Democratic rivals “the later voters will be more heavily skewed toward the progressive,” or in this case Raman.
In a fiery speech to cheering supporters Tuesday night, a confident Bass shouted, “We will achieve victory. I love Los Angeles.”
After acknowledging that more votes needed to be counted, she led the crowd in refrains of “Four more years,” and added, “When we fight, we win.”
A broadly smiling Raman told supporters “I'm very hopeful” and urged them to dance with her at an election night party. She alluded to the Democratic rout in Congress and said, “This election is about change too.”
“Hopelessness can be fatal for a city,” she added. “But this campaign refused to accept that."
Bass continues to face fallout from the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire, which became the most destructive blaze in city history. Los Angeles also struggles with an ongoing homelessness crisis — filthy encampments and rows of rusting RVs are a common sight in many neighborhoods. In the city known as the birthplace of the film industry, Hollywood jobs have been fleeing for years for cheaper locales. There are widespread complaints over the lack of basic services, from street paving to streetlight repair.
The choice voters make will have implications beyond the city limits, with Los Angeles preparing to host the 2028 Olympic Games.
Nationally, a victory for Raman would place her in the vanguard of democratic socialists in municipal government. In addition to Mamdani, Janeese Lewis George was elected Tuesday as mayor of Washington, D.C., after running practically unopposed, and Katie Wilson is mayor in Seattle.
The contest turns on change vs. experience
Bass, 73, has argued that she’s made enough progress to merit another term leading a city of 3.8 million people. She says Raman, 45, is “not ready for primetime” after only six years on the council.
Raman endorsed Bass before changing her mind and entering the contest herself. Now, she says, “we cannot afford another four years of decline, of mismanagement, of excuses.”
Bass was out of the country when the Palisades Fire ignited and caught the fire department unprepared despite days of warnings about the potential for powerful winds and bone-dry weather. This past June, a fire east of downtown in a massive frozen-food warehouse caused weeks of foul smells and frustration.
One of the unknowns is where supporters of former candidate Spencer Pratt will turn, if they vote at all. Pratt — a Republican and one-time reality personality who lost his home in the Palisades Fire — picked up about a quarter of the primary vote but did not advance to November.
Public safety and homelessness are top issues
Key issues in the race include public safety.
Bass wants to hire more police officers, and she has branded Raman’s views on policing and homelessness as “extreme.” Raman has said she would replace the police chief, which Bass has said would be reckless in advance of the Olympics.
Raman once talked of a department that would be much smaller and posted “defund the police” on social media in 2020. She did not support the mayor’s 2023 police contract, which she said was too expensive for the financially strapped city. More recently, she said the police department should remain at its current size.
On homelessness, Bass stresses the city has cleared dozens of encampments and brought thousands of people into shelter, but data show nearly half of them dropped out of the system and presumably returned to the streets.
Raman has opposed efforts to prohibit homeless people from setting up tents within 500 feet (152 meters) of schools and daycare centers. However, she appears to have softened her opposition to no-camping zones, which were intended to curb the spread of encampments and clear streets. She voted against dozens of them on the council, but she later said she would not block them if elected mayor.
If elected, Raman has said she would reduce the number of people sleeping in tents and encampments by at least 50% by 2028. She wants to expand medical teams that would bring care to encampments and others living on the streets, in an effort to build trust with those individuals to bring them indoors. She also wants to provide more housing to move people out of hotels rented by the city for the homeless.
Top Democrats have lined up with Bass
Bass is backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with nearly every member of the city council, including several aligned with the democratic socialists. She served in the state Legislature and Congress before becoming mayor in 2022 and was under consideration to be former President Joe Biden's running mate in 2020.
In an important signal to the business community, billionaire developer Rick Caruso said he was voting for Bass, but he stopped short of formally endorsing her. The two are former adversaries; Bass defeated Caruso in the 2022 mayoral race.
Raman, an urban planner, has picked up notable support from advocacy and political groups, including Our Revolution, which was founded by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the Sierra Club. She's thin on endorsements from prominent local politicians. She landed a widely publicized private meeting with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is not involved in the race, that hinted at her efforts to broaden her circle.
Raman sought to seize on voter anxiety over long-running problems in the city. A Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll conducted from Oct. 19-25 found that about 4 in 10 likely voters said reducing the number of homeless encampments should be a top priority for the next mayor to address, while about 3 in 10 said the same about ensuring public safety or building more affordable housing.
“Homelessness is rising despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent. Storefronts are closing,” Raman said in the sole televised debate. Bass, she said, has been "missing in action.”