Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, right, will face each other in the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff. Bass led the June 2 primary in the latest unofficial count, while Raman advanced to the runoff after later-counted ballots moved her into second place. – Photos from Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles and Nithya Raman via Wikimedia Commons
LOS ANGELES — Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman will face each other in the Nov. 3 runoff for mayor, giving voters a choice between an incumbent seeking another term and a progressive challenger calling for a different direction at City Hall.
The matchup was set after no candidate won a majority in the June 2 Primary Nominating Election. Under the city’s election calendar, the General Municipal Election will be held Nov. 3. Los Angeles County has until July 2 to certify the primary results.
Unofficial results posted by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk showed Bass leading the mayoral field with 275,992 votes, or 34.32%. Raman followed with 229,576 votes, or 28.55%. Former reality television personality Spencer Pratt was third with 207,757 votes, or 25.83%.
The Associated Press projected Monday that Raman had advanced to the runoff, after later-counted ballots moved her ahead of Pratt. Pratt had drawn national attention with an outsider campaign that criticized City Hall’s handling of homelessness, public safety and wildfire recovery, but he did not secure one of the two runoff spots in the latest unofficial count.
The November election now becomes a direct contest between two Democrats with different political profiles. Bass, a former member of Congress and former speaker of the California Assembly, will campaign on her record leading the nation’s second-largest city through homelessness, housing pressures, public safety concerns and recovery after recent wildfires.
Raman, an urban planner who represents Council District 4, is running as a progressive alternative. Her campaign has emphasized housing affordability, homelessness, renter protections, basic city services and changes to the way City Hall operates. Her city biography describes her as an immigrant, a working mother and the first South Asian member of the Los Angeles City Council.
The race is officially nonpartisan, but the runoff is expected to draw clear contrasts over policing, homelessness policy, housing development, labor influence and the pace of government reform. Bass enters with the advantages of incumbency and broad establishment support. Raman enters with momentum from a late primary surge and a campaign built around dissatisfaction with the status quo.
For Bass, the runoff will test whether voters believe her administration has made enough progress on the city’s most urgent problems. For Raman, it is a chance to argue that Los Angeles needs a more aggressive and different approach.
