San Franciscans signaled they had way more than their fill of homeless encampments and brazen street crime in 2024 when they replaced progressive Mayor London Breed with Daniel Lurie, a pragmatic centrist.
A year later, New Yorkers rejected political mainstays they considered corrupt or ineffectual when they veered left —way left — choosing democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor.
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Now Los Angeles stands just two months from its own mayoral election, facing the question of whether the city wants to stand pat with Mayor Karen Bass, or make an ideological correction, turning to a centrist, a la San Francisco, or banking left, like New York.
Bass has been struggling to prove she is a competent and forceful manager since the January 2025 fires incinerated much of Pacific Palisades and neighboring communities. While the mayor cites a downtick in the number of people living on the streets, many critics say that not nearly enough progress has been made on homelessness, given huge taxpayer investments in housing and services.
How the race took an unexpected turn
The shape of the race shifted dramatically when two moderates — former Los Angeles school Supt. Austin Beutner and real estate magnate and civic activist Rick Caruso — declared they wouldn’t run. Then-City Councilmember Nithya Raman jumped into the race on the last day of filing.
That meant no rematch of the 2022 Bass-Caruso contest and that Bass would instead face a field of candidates that included Raman, a former ally who started a wave of successful council runs by leftists supported by the Democratic Socialists of America.
One quarter of likely voters surveyed late last month by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley said they had not decided whom to support for mayor. Bass stood at 25%, ahead of the pack, but that was small comfort, given that well over half of all those surveyed said they had an unfavorable view of her.
Raman drew 17% support, followed by conservative reality TV personality Spencer Pratt at 14%, left-leaning affordable housing advocate Rae Huang at 8% and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller at 6%.
With support so fragmented, no one in this crowd stands much of a chance of winning a majority vote in June. That will send the top two finishers into a November runoff election.
Nonprofit founder and tech executive Adam Miller takes part in the first Los Angeles mayoral debate of the 2026 campaign in March.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
But who will make the final? Political pros believe that Bass, Raman and Miller stand the best chance of getting there.
Why? Though politically wounded, the 72-year-old Bass still controls the campaign funds and endorsements that make incumbents hard to beat. She also inspires many in liberal Los Angeles when she fights President Trump on issues such as the immigration raids. Raman, 44, has her base of support in a council district that stretches from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley. And Miller, 56, appears in the best position to occupy the space that had been claimed by moderate political pragmatists Beutner and Caruso.
Does Raman have a chance at unseating her former ally?
Though she won two council elections with the support of the Democratic Socialists, Raman is not running a campaign as an uber-progressive. Instead she has been leaning on her academic training in urban planning and her track record of both supporting and defying the City Council’s most liberal elements. Just two days after last month’s surprise entry into the mayor’s race, Raman declared that the Los Angeles Police Department staffing needed to be maintained at current levels, a substantial shift from a politician who had once called to “defund the police.”
Miller’s biggest challenge is that few Angelenos have heard of him. He needs to change that quickly in order to make the November runoff. My colleague Noah Goldberg reported how Miller lent his own campaign $2 million to launch an advertising campaign to increase his profile.
The Brentwood resident is the former chief executive of Cornerstone OnDemand, a training and development company that was sold to a private equity firm for $5.2 billion. Miller also helped power a couple of nonprofits, including Better Angels, which is devoted to building affordable housing and preventing homelessness.
Presented with some aspects of his profile, voter interest in Miller rose markedly, according to his internal polling. Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc., told The Times that the poll provided “a good argument that he can make the runoff,” adding: “This is a real deal.”
“This is a primary election just shrouded in doubt,” said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College. “There is just not a lot of clarity where voters will go.”
Today’s top stories 
Students head to class in San Fernando on March 24. New UCLA research briefs say student homelessness spiked in a single school year in Los Angeles County.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
L.A. County youth homelessness has surgedThe number increased by 28%, from 47,689 in 2022-23 to 61,249 in 2023-24, according to a pair of UCLA studies.Key drivers include a shortage of affordable housing, economic hardship, limited federal funding for schools and long-standing inequities affecting people of color and people with disabilities.A $200-million trust and a bitter divorceAn Imperial Valley farmer drove to Arizona and fatally shot his estranged wife in the middle of the night, according to prosecutors and court documents released to The Times this week.Investigators lay out a detailed narrative of how the farmer’s wife was killed and provide an intimate look at a couple and family in the midst of a contentious divorce.Coachella 2026: Everything you need to knowWhat else is going onCommentary and opinionsThis morning’s must readAnother must readFor your downtime 
(Ethan Gulley/For The Times)
Going outStaying inA question for you: How are you celebrating Easter this year?
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And finally … from our archives 
August 1973 photo of Marvin Gaye in Los Angeles.
(Marianna Diamos / Los Angeles Times)
On April 2, 1939, soul singer, songwriter and musician Marvin Gaye was born in Washington.
The final years of his life were a mix of triumph and tragedy. The Times’ Christopher Goddard wrote last year about Gaye’s murder at the hands of his father.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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