Karen Bass is heading into Los Angeles’ June 2 primary with no expectation of an outright win, but with her eyes fixed on the Nov. 3 runoff. The mayor, who is seeking a second and final term, said she fully intends to win the next round after a campaign shaped by the 2025 Palisades fire, falling public confidence and a crowded challenge from the left and the right.
Bass said her campaign does not expect her to get a majority vote on Tuesday. She cast the race as a test of whether voters will keep backing an incumbent who says she has been fighting for change since Day One. “I have been fighting for change from Day One,” she said, while also arguing that the work of governing often comes with frustration. “That’s very disruptive and can get people pissed off. But I’m going to do what needs to be done to address these problems,” she said.
The pressure on Bass is not coming from one direction. Nithya Raman is trying to unseat her, while Spencer Pratt has mounted an insurgent campaign after his home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. The January blaze destroyed some 6,800 structures and left 12 people dead, turning the city’s response into a defining political flash point just as Bass tries to hold together a coalition built on pragmatism and reform.
Michael Trujillo said the fires changed the way many Angelenos saw the mayor. “I think the city turned on her after the fires,” he said, adding that “We saw an office and an administration that was not well equipped for a crisis.” Bass was in Ghana when fires in January 2025 destroyed much of Pacific Palisades, and that absence has remained a source of criticism as she has faced broader concerns over homelessness, infrastructure and city services.
The history of Los Angeles mayoral politics gives Bass reason to worry about what a runoff can do. Former Mayor Sam Yorty was pushed into a runoff in 1973 and was defeated by Tom Bradley, and former Mayor James Hahn lost his reelection in 2005 after being forced into a runoff. Bass has a majority of voters viewing her unfavorably, a difficult position for any incumbent entering a citywide race that can quickly become a referendum on performance.
Bass was elected four years ago on a pledge to address homelessness without criminalizing it, and she still frames that promise as central to her pitch. But she said the biggest surprise of her tenure was not just the scale of the crisis; it was the politics around it. “The biggest shock to me was the fact that I was coming against people who actually don’t think street homelessness is a problem,” she said. “It was beyond my imagination that there would be people who think it’s OK to be on the street.”
Her allies in the entertainment world are also being pulled into the fight over what kind of city Los Angeles wants to be. On May 21, Bass told Hollywood unions that reality TV does not qualify someone to run the nation’s second-largest city. “Reality TV — that’s a good thing. Lots of jobs in reality TV,” she said, “But being the star of a reality TV show is very different than running the nation’s second-largest city, and one does not qualify you for the other.” She also said, “We will never abandon the industry,” and added, “The industry is a part of our DNA.”
For now, the la mayor race is heading toward a runoff with the incumbent trying to turn crisis management into a case for another term. Bass says she will keep doing the job and keep explaining what her administration has done. “No, I think it’s really important that I do my job, which is what I have done every single day,” she said, “and that I continue to do that and communicate to people what is being done and what we have done.”
