One of the spring's most interesting political fights is heating back up. After June’s primary, LA Mayoral odds cooled a bit when Spencer Pratt was eliminated, but the final round between Nithya Raman and incumbent Mayor Karen Bass has reignited discussion about the future of America’s second-largest city.
With a mostly uncompetitive slate of elections in California, this is one of the few places on the West Coast with competitive 2026 midterm odds.
LA mayor odds & current race dynamics
Karen Bass only narrowly won the mayor's race in 2022 against Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate mogul running as a moderate Democrat who could stitch together a coalition of Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats - and a whole host of celebrities - to hit 50%+1 of the vote in one of the bluest cities in America. It nearly worked: Caruso got 45% and forced Bass to get endorsements from Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Kamala Harris to drag her over the line.
Since then, Bass has been unpopular; she had to appear before a Federal judge over inadequate use of Federal anti-homelessness funding, her response to the LA Fires of 2025 was seen as inadequate, and LA has not had much success in the last couple of years. Between a dual Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild strike in 2023 that shut down Hollywood for months, the continuing loss of Hollywood productions to other jurisdictions, and the fires, Los Angeles is in a genuinely bad state.
Spencer Pratt, a Republican in a massively Democratic city, failed to stitch together the Caruso coalition again by attracting Republican endorsements, leaving Bass’ challenger from her left. Raman, often described as the Zohran Mamdani of LA by people with a one-dimensional view of politics, is progressive in some respects, but mostly running on the idea that Bass’ record is little substance and all talk.
Two tendencies: Bass is unpopular, but establishment-supported incumbents generally win re-election when they’re still popular with the establishment and face competition in LA mayoral odds.
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Democrats fighting for republican & swing votes
A simple understanding of politics would suggest Karen Bass should win this fairly easily. Without a Republican on the ballot, Democrats will likely decide the mayor's race, assuming they keep their relatively even split between Bass and Raman from the primary. As the establishment candidate, Bass should be more amenable to GOP voters than a progressive challenger, right?
Not exactly.
Raman is a progressive, but running as a change candidate makes her more appealing to Republicans and conservatives than you’d think. Raman isn’t running on implementing socialism; she’s running on rebuilding the city’s ability to actually get stuff done, which has helped Zohran immensely in New York. And with so much of Spencer Pratt’s vote coming from anti-establishment, middle-finger-to-the-system voters, it’s not really surprising that Raman is still in this fight.
With odds this tight on prediction market sites, it’s a genuine coin flip. The Democratic establishment is weaker than it was in 2022 and far more distracted. Now, losing to Trump again in 2024 has weakened party elites' grip on the party's voters. It’s also fair to say many saw Caruso as a Republican in everything but name, a conservative running as a Democrat because that’s the only way to win in a city like LA. Raman is a much more credible challenger amongst Democrats.
Key voter groups & campaign paths to victory
The other swing constituency will be Hispanics. Progressives and many white liberals will back Raman, while the sizable Black population will be behind Bass. Hispanic voters chose Bass in 2022, as she beat Caruso in heavily Hispanic precincts to build a majority coalition against Caruso’s moderate-conservative combo. But with some polling showing her losing Hispanics, Bass faces a harder race unless she can win over a chunk of Republicans.
Raman will need to avoid tripping up on ideology to convert her chances. If Bass wants to come back, she’ll need to paint Raman as a leftist ideologue, which she hasn’t done consistently. It would also help Bass if she could solve her problems with Hollywood elites, since Raman’s friendship with Mindy Kaling opens the door to many Caruso-Raman voters among Hollywood elites and richer parts of LA.
Raman also has some boost from the polling space. It was an internal campaign poll, but an Impact Research poll showed her up substantially, suggesting Bass is beatable. Given the headwinds of the last four years, that shouldn’t be surprising, or particularly easy for an incumbent to come back from after four miserable years for their city.
