Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman are headed toward a November 3 runoff in a race that has become a referendum not only on homelessness, but on the future of America’s most car-dependent major city. Bass led the June 2 primary with 34.3% of the vote, followed by Raman at 29.0%, marking the first time since 2005 that an incumbent Los Angeles mayor advanced to a runoff.
The race has shifted after a recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, found Raman at 39% and Bass at 28%, with 33% undecided. Bass has pointed to her Inside Safe program as evidence of progress, saying unsheltered homelessness has fallen 17.5%, though many voters do not appear to feel the improvement. Los Angeles has more than 45,000 unhoused people, and experts say the mayor’s options are limited because key resources are controlled by Los Angeles County, the state of California and the federal government.
Raman, a city planner who has support from the Democratic Socialists of America’s Los Angeles chapter, has promised to cut tent encampments in half before the 2028 Olympics and move everyone indoors during her first term. She is also pushing more housing near transit and in single-family neighborhoods through a “gentle density” approach, and has proposed temporarily exempting new multifamily housing from the city’s ULA mansion tax for 15 years.
The sharpest divide is over transportation policy in a city long shaped by cars. Raman has proposed reducing some four-lane streets to two lanes with dedicated space for bikes and buses, a move that has drawn attention from voters who see cars not just as transportation, but as a necessity and a shield in daily life.
