Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman is officially set to square off against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November to determine who will lead the second-largest city in the U.S.
While Bass had already been projected to advance to the runoff last week, The Associated Press just projected Monday that Raman officially surpassed Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in last week’s primary election.
Los Angeles voters will decide whether they want to give Bass, the liberal incumbent, another chance to lead, or opt for Raman, a progressive rising star, after the last two years of deadly wildfires, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and skyrocketing housing costs have shaken up the city.
Bass now faces her toughest political fight yet. Public opinion on her soured due to her response to the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures across the city. A former member of Congress, Bass, 72, is running for reelection with a campaign set on continuing her work to address homelessness in the city, build affordable housing and decrease violent crime.
During her first term, Bass declared a local emergency on homelessness and secured $50 million from the Los Angeles City Council to start a program to move people out of encampments and into temporary and permanent housing. Bass’ initiative, Inside Safe, drew criticism, both because it cost so much and because a growing percentage of people who were housed by the program have since returned to living in encampments. However, the program has overall reduced the number of people living on the streets by roughly 18%, the first two-year decrease in the city’s history.
Bass has condemned and opposed federal ICE raids across the city, saying that they create “fear and terror.” When federal agents swarmed MacArthur Park, Bass came to the scene demanding that ICE end its operation. Earlier this year, Bass signed an executive order seeking to protect residents from the federal government, including barring federal agents from using city property for raids.
Bass, the first woman to be elected mayor of LA, defeated Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer with little political experience, in 2022. That multi-million dollar race was one of the most expensive in the city’s history. By comparison, candidates in this year’s race have spent more modestly. As of late May, Bass had raked in $3.13 million, with an edge over Raman, who refused corporate dollars and brought in a little over $1 million.
But recent history — both in Los Angeles and in other metropolises — has shown that it is challenging for big city mayors to secure reelection.
Raman, who made history as the first candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America to win a seat on the city council, hopes to push policies even further left than Bass has. A representative of Council District 4, a diverse community of immigrants, entertainment and tech workers, homeowners and renters from Silver Lake to the San Fernando Valley, Raman has been likened to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Similar to Bass, Raman wants to reduce the number of encampments in the city, in anticipation of thousands flocking to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympic Games. She also hopes to boost public transportation, fix potholes and broken streetlights, and make it easier to build more affordable housing.
The two officials, both charismatic and driven to help the city’s unhoused population, have historically been allies, endorsing one another’s campaigns. A few weeks ago, Raman endorsed Bass’ reelection campaign before she threw her hat into the ring.
“The mayor and I are very aligned on our values,” Raman told The New York Times. “I think both of us really care about the city’s most vulnerable. We want the city to shine.”
The primary race also upended the political ambitions of former reality TV star and registered Republican Spencer Pratt, who ran an expensive and unsuccessful campaign capitalizing on Angelenos’ frustration with the fires and homelessness.
Pratt and his allies, including President Donald Trump, have not been taking Pratt’s underperformance well. Instead, they’d already begun spreading conspiracy theories before the race projections had even been made.
“A net swing of more than 43,000 votes since Tuesday.. 43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before…?” Pratt wrote Sunday on X, alluding to the estimated number of unhoused people living in Los Angeles. “Probably nothing.”
Trump, who endorsed Pratt, argued on Truth Social that Pratt’s loss is simply impossible.
“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had,” Trump wrote. “3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections! Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials.” (Hilton, another Republican with Trump’s endorsement, is competing and is expected to face off against former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) in the state’s gubernatorial race.)
The mayoral election is Nov. 3.
Taiyler S. Mitchell contributed reporting.