Nearly a week after Los Angeles’ June 2 primary election, official vote counting has finalized the field for November’s general election mayoral race, with progressive city councilor Nithya Raman advancing to challenge incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass. Reality television personality Spencer Pratt, a political outsider and longshot Republican candidate, saw his unconventional bid for city leadership end in elimination.
Incumbent Bass crossed the vote threshold to lock in her general election spot shortly after polls closed on June 2, but slow vote tallying stretched out the race to determine her opponent for the November runoff, as the city works to fill the top executive role for the second most populous urban center in the United States. The winner of the upcoming general election will inherit leadership of a city grappling with two longstanding, pressing crises: widespread unhoused populations and crippling housing affordability that has priced out thousands of working and middle-class residents.
For Bass, a November victory would grant her a second four-year term, which will also be her final one due to city term limits. The 72-year-old Democratic politician boasts a decades-long career rooted in Los Angeles community organizing and public service. Before her first mayoral win, she represented sections of Los Angeles for six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and held a prestigious seat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Bass was widely discussed as a potential vice presidential running mate for then-Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden. Bass made history long before her time in Congress, too: during her tenure in the California State Assembly, she became the first Black woman to serve as speaker of a state legislative lower chamber in U.S. history.
Bass’ first mayoral term has been dominated by high-stakes crises, from her administration’s ongoing efforts to reduce homelessness to responses to federal immigration enforcement actions and extreme wildfire events. Most notably, her leadership faced intense public and political scrutiny following the January 2025 Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s recorded history. The blaze burned through a wealthy Los Angeles coastal neighborhood, destroyed more than 1,000 homes, killed 12 people, and drew widespread criticism of the city’s emergency response efforts.
Raman, a 44-year-old urban planner and self-identified democratic socialist, entered the mayoral race in a last-minute surprise, announcing her candidacy just before the filing deadline – and only weeks after she had already officially endorsed Bass’ re-election. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she has been compared to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a fellow DSA member who won office on a progressive platform. Though Raman has served on the Los Angeles City Council since 2020, she failed to secure endorsements from any of her fellow council members for her mayoral bid. Her campaign has centered on aggressive policy proposals to expand access to affordable housing, drastically reduce the city’s homeless population, and revitalize job growth in Hollywood’s iconic entertainment sector. Raman has centered her criticism of Bass on the claim that the incumbent has not moved fast or aggressively enough to solve the city’s homelessness crisis.
Pratt, the 42-year-old Republican candidate who made his name as a reality TV star on MTV’s hit 2000s series *The Hills*, launched his longshot candidacy in January, positioning himself as a political outsider with no prior experience holding public office. The former publicist rose to fame in 2007 when he joined the cast of *Laguna Beach* spin-off *The Hills* as then-boyfriend (now husband) of co-star Heidi Montag. Pratt became one of Bass’ most high-profile critics after the Palisades Fire destroyed his personal home, turning his personal loss into a central talking point of his campaign.
The week-long delay in finalizing vote totals drew unfounded claims of voter fraud from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who alleged without evidence that California Democrats were attempting to “steal” local elections in the state.