Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has taken the lead over her challengers in her bid for re-election, but more than half of voters view her unfavorably, according to a poll released Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bass received 25% of voters’ support in a UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times, while City Council member Nitya Raman came in third with 17% and conservative reality TV star Spencer Pratt came in third with 14%.<\/p>\n
The survey found that nearly a quarter of voters were undecided. <\/p>\n
Bass has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the devastating Palisades fire. More than a year later, 56% of those surveyed said they had an unfavorable view of him, while 31% viewed him favourably.<\/p>\n
The survey of 840 likely voters between March 9 and 15 provides one of the first snapshots of the mayoral race, less than three months before the June 2 primary.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the top three, leftist Rai Huang received support from 8% of those polled, while tech entrepreneur Adam Miller received support from 6%.<\/p>\n
Dan Schnoor, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine, said that despite Bass’s lead, the survey is “marginally disastrous” for him because the field of candidates is so weak.<\/p>\n
“He’s having so much trouble against this field, against such an unknown field of opponents, it’s a very bad sign for him,” Schnurr said. “The only thing saving him at this point is that the top tier of potential candidates who were considering running against him decided to stay out of the race.”<\/p>\n
The mayoral race tightened up in early February, when Raman shocked the political establishment by jumping against his ally Bais just hours before the nomination deadline. <\/p>\n
By that time, other well-known politicians, including billionaire developer Rick Caruso and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, had opted out of the race. Former Los Angeles school superintendent. Austin Buettner dropped out of school after the death of his 22-year-old daughter. <\/p>\n
Those decisions have left Angelenos with a field of candidates they hardly know. Although they have strong opinions about Bais, more than half of those surveyed said they did not know enough about Raman to form an opinion. Even most of the voters were unfamiliar with the other candidates.<\/p>\n
Bass was on a diplomatic visit to Ghana when the Palisades fire broke out on January 7, 2025, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of homes. She was volatile in her initial public appearance and has since been attacked by Pratt, Caruso, and others over the LAFD’s handling of the fire and the speed of the recovery, as well as allegations that she ordered an after-action report to defuse the fire. <\/p>\n
Bass’s campaign has pointed to declines in homelessness and crime among the successes of his first term as mayor.<\/p>\n
“It’s clear that Angelenos are frustrated by decades of inaction on key issues,” Bass campaign spokesman Douglas Harman said in a statement. \u201cThis campaign will show that it is Karen Bass who has changed direction on these issues and that others have responded with reports while Karen Bass has taken action.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"More](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/5890ea1\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/690x814+0+0\/resize\/320x378!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe9%2Fb3%2Fefb7fbd44123bad507b10f4b9591%2F2653ed1d124144e4b2c1e77a58dbd106)
<\/picture> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<\/ps-interactive-project> <\/div>\nRamon, who represents Los Feliz and parts of Silver Lake and the San Fernando Valley, was viewed favorably by 26% of those polled and unfavorably by 23%. 51% said they did not have an opinion of him, which may indicate that he still has to expand his name recognition across the city. <\/p>\n
He has said that his decision to run for office was partly due to his frustration with city leaders’ inability to fix basic things like fixing street lights and paving roads.<\/p>\n
“I’m so grateful that our campaign to make our city more affordable is connecting with so many Angelenos,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Former City Council member Mike Bonin, who runs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA, said that after the shock of Raman’s entry into the race, the mayoral campaign is going at a slow pace.<\/p>\n
“Candidates are raising money and doing their due diligence … but it feels like a steady, quiet race,” he said. “That’s what this survey shows.”<\/p>\n
Bonin said the most important number is the difference between Raman and Pratt. <\/p>\n
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary, the top two finishers will run off in the November runoff. According to Bonin, Raman and Pratt will likely jockey to face Bess.<\/p>\n
“Although voters are clearly looking for an alternative (to Bass), they haven’t chosen anyone,” Bonin said. <\/p>\n
The poll showed that Bass \u2013 the city’s first female mayor and the first black female mayor \u2013 received strong support from 43% of black voters, while Raman received 6%. <\/p>\n
Raman, who would be the city’s first South Asian mayor if elected, leads among Asian and Pacific Islander voters with 34%, while Bass leads with 10%.<\/p>\n
![\"Bass](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/cdda3c3\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1360x600+0+0\/resize\/320x141!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe4%2Fe2%2F2e466a6f40bc84408440c1ff89ae%2F3668f766c5ff4448b0abf471fe541dc1)
<\/picture> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<\/ps-interactive-project> <\/div>\nThe poll found that Bass performs better with older voters, while Raman and Huang are attracting younger voters. Huang leads the pack among voters between 18 and 29 years old, with 19%.<\/p>\n
![\"Raman](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/3bb6e95\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1360x572+0+0\/resize\/320x135!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbf%2F2f%2F3665a7d3468caf9e45d5eaf39ab0%2Ff19216d27f4c4121a1b0d9e1275cd2c4)
<\/picture> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<\/ps-interactive-project> <\/div>\nIn the survey, Angelenos ranked their top priorities for the next mayor to address. First more affordable housing was built, then roads, sidewalks and streetlights were fixed, and then homeless Angelenos were moved indoors.<\/p>\n
![\"Voters](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/2600444\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1360x1056+0+0\/resize\/320x249!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F0b%2Fb3%2Fec08b30d498da1dc16b58b9f0a4d%2F92972f1b0ca145259f1caa29c7b23d45)
<\/picture> <\/noscript> <\/div>\n<\/ps-interactive-project> <\/div>\nOne potential bright spot for Bass was policing.<\/p>\n
The poll found that 39% of Angelenos think the size of the LAPD needs to be increased, 29% say the department should stay the same size and 19% say it should be smaller.<\/p>\n
Bass has called on the City Council to hire more police officers. <\/p>\n
Raman, meanwhile, has said he believes the police force is the right size at about 8,700 officers, down from a peak of 10,000 in 2020.<\/p>\n
“Bass is going to make Ramon look like AOC’s liberal sister,” Schnurr said, referring to progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “If she ends up running against Raman, she could run as a tough-on-crime centrist.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has taken the lead over her challengers in her bid for re-election, but more than half of voters view her unfavorably, according to a poll released Sunday. Bass received 25% of voters’ support in a UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times, while City Council member<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[7129,3195,841,1248,1764,1198,7131,1076,5673],"class_list":["post-14603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-bass","tag-field","tag-finds","tag-leads","tag-mayor","tag-poll","tag-unfavorably","tag-view","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14607,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14603\/revisions\/14607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}