Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is trailing Councilwoman Nithya Raman by a significant margin with just weeks to go until the November election, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The incumbent mayor of California’s largest city is trailing Raman, who is running to the left of Bass, by 11%, according to the poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Of those surveyed, 39% of likely LA voters backed Raman, compared with 28% for Bass.
Still, roughly one-third of voters remain undecided, signaling Bass holds a key path to claiming a second term.
“It’s extraordinarily unusual to see this many undecided voters at this point in the race,” Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, told the Los Angeles Times. “Raman clearly has the advantage. Her task is a little less onerous than Bass’.”
The challenging political cycle for Bass comes after she faced intense criticism over her handling of the brutal Palisades fires that swept Los Angeles in early 2025, causing billions in damage, torching thousands of structures, and killing 31 people. The disaster triggered debate over why some of the state’s largest water reservoirs sat empty when the fires started and why the city’s fire department had its budget cut shortly before the crisis. The latest poll indicates 56% of likely voters believe Bass did a poor or very poor job responding to the disaster.
Scrutiny of Bass’s leadership heightened again earlier this year, when an investigation suggested she worked to downplay criticism about the city’s response to the deadly fires in an official report on the disaster.
The controversies, among others, have provided Raman a path to wage a formidable and unexpected challenge to the woman she once considered a close ally and endorsed for mayor. If elected, Raman could be the latest political figure to push socialist-leaning policies in major cities. The progressive councilwoman is endorsed by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America ahead of her Nov. 3 runoff election against Bass.
One of the DSA’s objectives in Los Angeles is to “expand noncitizen voting in all local elections.” Raman was among the 10 council members who voted in June to start a charter change that would later allow some noncitizens to vote in city and school board races, according to Westside Current.
LOS ANGELES MAYORAL RACE UPENDED BY ALLEGATIONS KAREN BASS ALTERED FIRE REPORT
“I see the DSA as a partner for a lot of the work that we’ve done,” Raman told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, adding that she works with “many, many other organizations” across the city.
The latest survey on the mayoral race was conducted online with a sample of 2,150 likely city voters between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20. It has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.