Bass advances to Los Angeles mayoral runoff

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has advanced to a November runoff in her bid for a second term, but voters will have to wait to learn whether she will face City Councilmember Nithya Raman or former reality TV star Spencer Pratt.

NBC News and CBS News projected Bass would move on after Tuesday’s all-party primary, where more than a dozen candidates competed. Because no candidate was on track to win more than 50% of the vote, the top two finishers advance to the general election. Ballots were still being counted Tuesday evening, leaving the second runoff spot unresolved.

The race has become one of the city’s most volatile mayoral contests in years, shaped by frustration over homelessness, the local economy and last year’s destructive wildfires. A May 28 UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll showed Bass with 26% support among likely voters, Raman at 25% and Pratt at 22%, within a margin of error of about 3 percentage points. The same poll found undecided voters had dropped to 10%, after an earlier UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs survey found 40% of likely voters undecided.

“I haven’t seen a race this close in decades, especially for the city of Los Angeles,” campaign strategist Luis Alvarado told CBS Los Angeles before the election. “Everybody is tied within the margin of error.”

Bass, a former congresswoman and state lawmaker, was first elected mayor in 2022 after defeating real estate developer Rick Caruso. She became the first woman to lead Los Angeles and entered office with strong approval ratings. Her standing fell after the January 2025 wildfires, which killed at least 31 people, destroyed thousands of structures and left some fire hydrants and water tanks without water during firefighting efforts. Bass was in Ghana on a diplomatic trip when the fires broke out, a trip she later called a “mistake,” according to The Guardian. The National Weather Service had warned of “critical fire conditions” before she left.

Bass has defended her record while acknowledging voter frustration. “It’s super important that I explain about the accomplishments that have been done,” she told KABC-TV last month, citing declines in homelessness and crime. She said homelessness was down 17.5% two years in a row, while homelessness nationally rose 18%, and said the city’s homicide rate was at a 60-year low.

Her administration has pointed to Inside Safe, a program that clears encampments and places people in interim housing, often motel rooms. Bass also told CBS Los Angeles that she worked to avert layoffs during a $1 billion budget shortfall and would make this her final campaign for public office. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris have endorsed her reelection bid.

Raman, once a Bass ally, entered the race in February after previously endorsing Bass. A Democrat and democratic socialist, she was elected to the City Council in 2020 after unseating David Ryu and was reelected in 2024. Raman has made housing central to her campaign, calling for more development, less red tape and stronger oversight of homelessness programs. She has criticized Inside Safe as spending money without enough results and said encampment bans merely move people elsewhere.

“Los Angeles is at a breaking point, and people can feel it in the most basic ways,” Raman said in her campaign announcement. She has also touted a 2025 rent stabilization measure she introduced that capped maximum annual rent increases for tenants in apartments built before 1978.

Pratt, a registered Republican and political newcomer best known for MTV’s “The Hills,” entered the race after losing his Pacific Palisades home in the 2025 fires. His campaign has centered on criticism of Bass’ wildfire response, social media attacks and videos, some generated with artificial intelligence. Pratt has accused Bass and Newsom of “criminal negligence,” according to NBC News, and has pledged to eliminate homelessness if elected.

“The fire was not what motivated me to go after becoming the mayor of Los Angeles,” Pratt told CBS Los Angeles. “It was the months after, and discovering the layers of city negligence and then the coverups and the lies.”

President Donald Trump did not formally endorse Pratt but praised him, saying, “I’d like to see him do well. He’s a character.” Pratt has said he is focused on local issues and not national politics. Bass, asked about Pratt by KABC-TV, said he was “tapping into the anger and frustration that people have,” but added, “I don’t think he has a clue” about running Los Angeles.