LOS ANGELES — Karen Bass will face a November runoff election to keep her job as mayor of Los Angeles, after a better-than-expected performance in early returns.
Her opponent remained to be determined between Republican reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and Democratic City Councilmember Nithya Raman, according to early returns Tuesday night.
The runoff, the first for a Los Angeles mayoral incumbent in more than two decades, comes amid widespread dissatisfaction with Bass’ performance, notably on the city’s still-deep homelessness crisis and the January 2025 wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
Nevertheless, the 72-year-old Democrat attracted the support of city councilmembers and key business and labor groups who’ve argued that the mayor is moving Los Angeles in the right direction. She’s received high marks for her opposition to federal immigration enforcement raids that swept across the region last summer.
Cheers erupted at Bass’ watch party inside the Line Hotel in Koreatown on Tuesday night, where Bass emerged to a raucous reception and delivered what amounted to a victory speech, at times dancing across the stage and pounding her fist on a podium hard enough that the reverberation was audible in the boisterous crowd.
The incumbent mayor quickly turned the focus of her speech towards November, declaring that her spot would be secured by the end of the night, eliciting chants of “four more years” from attendees.
“We've been fighting, because we're not going to let somebody turn back our clock,” Bass said. “We are not going to do that. We are going to continue moving our city forward, because this is the greatest city in the world.”
The mayoral campaign has been dominated by wall-to-wall tabloid coverage of Pratt, a 42-year-old political novice who lost his home in the wildfire and relentlessly attacked Bass over it. Pratt raised $3.3 million through mid-May — more than Bass and Raman — and his rabid supporters have posted viral AI videos featuring the candidate as an avenging superhero. Raman, 44, represented a challenge from Bass’ left and questioned the mayor’s management of the city budget and bureaucracy.
Conventional wisdom holds that Bass will have a stronger chance of prevailing in November should she go against Pratt instead of Raman. While Pratt has emphasized that the race is nonpartisan, just 15 percent of city voters are registered Republican and he has attracted support from President Donald Trump and numerous other conservative figures.
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