The Los Angeles mayoral race is a stalemate as the campaign draws to a close, with a new poll showing incumbent Karen Bass erasing the double-digit lead previously held by council member Nithya Raman.
Raman and Bass now each have 40% of likely Los Angeles voters in their camp, with 19% still undecided ahead of the Nov. 3 election, according to the UC Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Times.
This neck-and-neck race is a big change from September, when Raman took an 11 percentage point lead with the support of 39% of likely voters, compared to Bass at 28%.
It follows weeks of relentless attacks on Raman by Bass, who some analysts say should campaign more aggressively to close the gap with his challenger.
“It’s certainly a breath of fresh air for Bass to see the race end. She’ll probably feel the campaign is having the effect she wants, which is to focus more on Raman and put Raman on the defensive,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS poll.
Mayor Karen Bass greets phone banking volunteers at her campaign headquarters in South Los Angeles.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
The survey released Wednesday was conducted online in English and Spanish among a sample of 2,197 likely voters in the city between October 19 and 25. It has a margin of error of approximately three percentage points.
The stabilization of the race, as well as the sharp drop in the number of undecided voters, was largely driven by conservative voters who chose Republican Spencer Pratt in the primary, deciding to vote for mayor in the runoff, DiCamillo said.
In the September Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll, 22% of Pratt voters said they planned to support Bass, while 16% said they favored Raman. That still left 63 percent of Pratt voters undecided.
In the new poll, Bass climbed to 41% of Pratt’s vote, while Raman dropped to 14% and 45% were still undecided. Pratt has not endorsed any candidate in the race and continues to criticize Raman and Bass on social media.
“Pratt voters are the biggest insert,” DiCamillo said. “The question remains: As we look at Pratt voters, 45% remain undecided. Will they vote?”
Raman trailed Bass in every poll during the primary campaign. Neither candidate had ever received 40 percent in any Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll.
In the June 2 primary election, Bass received 34% of the vote while Raman received 29%. Pratt placed third with 26 percent.
In the new poll, Raman lost support in key areas, including among groups that previously appeared to lean in his favor.
Council member and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, center, with supporters in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
In the September poll, Raman led among Latinos by 24 percentage points, 45 percent to Bass’s 21 percent. In the October poll, Bass was at 40% and Raman fell to 43%, leaving both within the margin of error in this key constituency.
DiCamillo said part of that change had to do with the likely voting population becoming clearer as the election approached, and older Latinos appeared to make up a larger portion of the electorate.
“The Latino electorate now includes more older Latinos; that benefits Bass,” he said.
Black voters, long considered the backbone of Bass’s coalition, solidified behind the mayor, with 71% of likely black voters supporting her, compared to 13% supporting Raman. While Bass led among likely black voters in the September poll, the already wide margin was much slimmer at the time, between 48% and 20%.
The poll also confirmed a widely held belief within the Bass camp that the San Fernando Valley would lean toward the mayor over Raman.
Raman led in the Valley in the September poll 34% to 26%, but that number has flipped over the past month, with Bass now ahead of Raman 44% to 33%.
Bass’ rise in the poll was all the more notable as the mayor’s favorable ratings — which have been in the tank since the January 2025 wildfires — remained underwater, with 65% of Angelenos viewing her unfavorably, compared to 64% in the last poll. Only 32% have a positive opinion of the mayor, an increase of four percentage points compared to September.
Bass’s attacks on Raman appear to have a significant effect on voters’ opinions of the challenger.
For the first time in a Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll this cycle, Raman posted a higher unfavorable rating than favorable, with 49 percent of likely voters saying they viewed her unfavorably, compared to 42 percent who had a positive opinion of her.
The mayor, her campaign team and her surrogates have stepped up their offensive against Raman, seizing any opportunity to hammer the council member over remarks she made on the campaign trail that they say make her unfit for mayor and “not ready for prime time” — a slogan the mayor and his allies have deployed against their rival.
In early October, the Bass campaign criticized Raman for a video she posted with a left-wing influencer in which she urged viewers to “stop the fascist liars” as a photo of Bass appeared on screen. Raman criticized Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell in the video.
Bass accused the council member of calling city police officers fascists. A spokeswoman for Raman said she was referring to the “Trump administration’s violent kidnappings” as fascist, not the mayor, police chief or officers. The story made headlines for days.
The Bass camp also attacked Raman that week after photos surfaced of the council member attending a happy hour the day federal immigration authorities began their raids in Los Angeles last summer, although Raman said he attended a protest the same day.
The Bass campaign issued a press release calling it “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Nithya Raman week.”
The attacks continued the following week after Raman said during the town hall debate that the “gold standard” for LAPD non-cooperation with law enforcement on immigration matters occurred during the tenure of former LAPD Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.
Gates, a controversial chief accused of racist remarks during his tenure, was leading the department during the videotaped assault of Rodney King in 1991, and Bass said Raman’s comments showed she “wasn’t really familiar with Los Angeles, particularly the black community.”
Raman countered that Bass was misrepresenting her comments, but later apologized, saying that mentioning Gates was painful for the people of Los Angeles.
The survey also asked respondents about the top priorities the next mayor should address. Reducing the number of homeless encampments was by far the top answer, chosen by 43% of likely voters.
Tied for second among top concerns were ensuring public safety and building more affordable housing, selected by 29 percent each.
Protecting immigrant communities was the third most cited concern, at 21 percent, followed by balancing the city budget at 17 percent.
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