Karen Bass faces challenges as she seeks second term as LA mayor
Mayor Karen Bass is running for mayor of Los Angeles for her
second term. With the upcoming mayoral election taking place on
June 2, 2026, Bass faces a challenging race attributable to fallout
from her current term and competition with opposing candidates.
Bass was elected mayor on Nov. 8, 2022 after beating real estate
developer Rick Caruso 54.8 percent to 45.2 percent. Bass’s cam-
paigns were focused on homelessness and affordable housing. In
2024, Bass announced that she was running for re-election in 2026.
In the second half of her mayoral term, Bass was under scrutiny
due to her absence during the Los Angeles fires in January 2025. At
the time of the fires, Bass was in Ghana attending the inauguration
of President John Dramani Mahama. By Jan. 12 2025, one of the
main change.org petitions demanding Bass’s resignation amassed
over 150,000 signatures, reflecting the frustration of the fire victims
and local residents. Change.org is a platform that people can use to
create campaigns about issues in their communities.
Joshua Ghermezian (’27) conveyed his sentiment on Bass’s ab-
sence during the fire.
“I don’t expect her to be out there with the firefighters, you know
taking out the water, maybe passing a bucket. But regardless, if your
constituents have a risk of their homes being burned, you should be
there.” Ghermezian said.
Noah Pust (’26) expressed a contrasting opinion to the previous
statement.
“I don’t think it’s really my place to criticize her for the fires be-
cause she was doing the best she could. And it’s really not a good
situation, it was devastating,” Pust said.
On Jan. 10 2025, Bass issued a press conference to address the
fires. In this release, Bass emphasized a focus on rebuilding the city.
Following this conference, Bass issued an emergency order to ac-
celerate the recovery process, which included expediting building
permits and removal of debris from impacted areas.
The primary rounds for the upcoming mayoral race are set to
take place on June 2. Candidates include incumbent Bass, reality
star Spencer Bratt and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller. Former su-
perintendent of the Los Angeles School District (LAUSD) Austin
Beutner dropped out of the race, citing the death of his daughter.
On Jan. 22, real estate developer Rick Caruso announced he would
not run for mayor or governor, choosing against a rematch of the
2022 election.
On Feb. 7, just hours before the filing deadline, LA city coun-
cilmember Nithya Raman joined the race. Bass and Raman have
worked together ever since Raman was elected to the LA city coun-
cil in 2020. Both have worked towards citing the same city issues,
such as homelessness. Bass also endorsed Raman in 2025 during the
re-election bid for the LA city council. Despite their earlier alliance,
Raman expressed to the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 7 her dissat-
isfaction with the urgency in which the current administration is
handling issues such as homelessness, housing and city services.
“We’ve worked closely together on my biggest priorities and her
biggest priorities, and there’s significant alignment there. But over
the last few months in particular, I’ve really begun to feel like unless
we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles,
that the things we count on are not going to function anymore,”
Raman said.
Raman poses a further challenge due to Bass’s low approval ratings, which have seen a significant drop from her high approval ratings of roughly 50 percent in 2023. The results of a private poll obtained by KNX News showed that 60 percent of survey respondents were not satisfied with the effi-cacy in which Karen Bass’s administration addressed homelessness.
They also found that the approval rate on her handling of city issues
was 36 percent, putting her in a vulnerable position.
“I think she [Bass] should be working to provide resources for
homeless people, whether that’s building more shelters, whether
that’s building more affordable housing, whether that’s supporting
more places for mental health. I think there’s a lot of work to be
done,” Pust said.
On Feb. 4, The Los Angeles Times reported that Bass altered lines
of an after-action report concerning the Palisades fire. The Times
accused Bass of ‘watering down’ the report, aimed at softening find-
ings of the actions taken by Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD).
Bass’s office responded by denying these allegations.
Sophia Friedman / The Samohi
Karen Bass and volunteers gather at
the ‘Mayor for Los Angeles Volunteer’ event associated with Bass’s run for
mayor on Sep. 22, 2024