A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Times, released September 23, put Councilmember Nithya Raman at 39% and Mayor Karen Bass at 28% among likely Los Angeles voters, with 33% undecided. The online survey of 2,150 likely city voters ran September 15-20 with a margin of error of about 3 points. Bass's unfavorable rating was 63%; the poll listed moving homeless people indoors and building more affordable housing among voters' top issues.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Times put Councilmember Nithya Raman at 39% and Mayor Karen Bass at 28% among likely Los Angeles voters, with 33% undecided; it surveyed 2,150 likely city voters online September 15–20. Bass's favorability was 28% favorable to 63% unfavorable, and Raman's 40% to 39%. IGS director Mark DiCamillo said "Raman clearly has the advantage" and called the share of undecided voters "extraordinarily unusual" this close to an election.
Bass finished first in the June 2 primary, 34% to Raman's 29%; mail ballots for the November 3 runoff go out beginning October 1.
Campaign finance reports through September 19 show Mayor Karen Bass with $1.5 million in direct contributions and $1 million in city matching funds, and Councilmember Nithya Raman with $1.1 million in contributions and $1.4 million in matching funds, totals of $2.51 million and $2.53 million. Raman reported about $1.9 million cash on hand versus nearly $1.2 million for Bass. The carpenters-sponsored Estamos Con Nithya committee has taken in $6 million, half from hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick, while the Los Angeles Police Protective League has put nearly $2.8 million into pro-Bass efforts and Airbnb spent $1.75 million on a pro-Bass primary committee.
The city's matching fund program pays $6 in public funds for every $1 from local contributors, up to $257 per qualifying donor; the runoff is November 3.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League released a 30-second television ad Friday criticizing Councilwoman Nithya Raman's opposition to Municipal Code 41.18, the city's anti-camping law, ahead of the November 3 mayoral election between Raman and Mayor Karen Bass. The union provided $620,000 for the campaign and the Los Angeles Professional Manager's Association contributed another $100,000, for a total of $720,000.
LAPPL president Ricky Mendoza said in the ad campaign that Raman voted more than 75 times against banning encampments near schools, parks and daycares; the runoff is November 3.
Raman released her first general-election ad, a 30-second spot narrated by Bob Odenkirk and timed to air around Monday's Emmy Awards, in which she promises to "fight to keep Hollywood in Hollywood" and says Mayor Karen Bass has not acted with enough urgency on entertainment job losses. Bass's campaign said Raman "never introduced a single piece of legislation to help the film industry" and recused herself from four of seven film-permitting items in March 2026 because of her husband's industry work; the paper noted Raman participated in the other film votes that day. FilmLA reported 4,711 permitted shoot days in Greater Los Angeles in the second quarter of 2026, down 12.7 percent from a year earlier.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and Los Angeles mayoral challenger Nithya Raman presented homelessness platforms at a forum hosted by the nonprofit Hope the Mission and KTLA5. Raman cited a Los Angeles Times report that 40% of Inside Safe participants returned to the streets and proposed short-term rental vouchers she said have a 75% effectiveness rate at moving people to permanent housing or self-sustainability; Hilton called California's homelessness situation a "scandal."
The 2026 Greater L.A. Homeless Count estimated 45,000 unhoused people in the city of Los Angeles, a 3.4% increase after two years of decreases.
New York Post · on Nithya Raman's DSA-LA endorsement
At a Wednesday press conference, the Post pressed Raman on why she held press conferences for union endorsements but none for DSA-LA's, and on whether the group's "extreme left-wing ideology" would help Los Angeles; Raman did not directly answer, saying "I believe my policies and my agenda will help the city." The Post reported she waited a day before acknowledging the DSA-LA endorsement on social media. DSA-LA endorsed Raman on September 2 after she secured more than 60% of the vote among participating chapter members.
Raman called the press conference to criticize Mayor Karen Bass over homelessness oversight after Bass stepped down from the LAHSA Commission on September 9.
At a September 9 news conference with City Controller Kenneth Mejia, Councilmember Nithya Raman said Mayor Karen Bass had failed to oversee hundreds of millions in homelessness spending and pledged that, if elected, the city would manage its homelessness funding by the end of her first year, with Mejia given greater audit access. Bass's campaign said her departure from the LAHSA Commission does not change who oversees the funding. Raman said unsheltered homelessness fell 49% in her district in the most recent count; the 2026 count estimated 45,194 people homeless citywide, up 3.4%, with unsheltered homelessness up 7.9% to 29,115.
A federal judge in August issued a preliminary injunction halting the Trump administration's June suspension of LAHSA's HUD funding while LAHSA's lawsuit proceeds.
Democratic Left · on DSA-LA's endorsement of Nithya Raman in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff
DSA-LA voted to endorse City Councilor Nithya Raman for Los Angeles mayor in her runoff against incumbent Karen Bass, with the vote crossing the chapter's 60% approval threshold. The chapter also endorsed candidates for the Burbank and West Hollywood city councils, the Inglewood and Centinela Valley school boards, and Angela Gonzales-Torres in her U.S. House runoff. The same roundup reported Chicago DSA is running six candidates — four incumbents and two challengers — in the February 23, 2027 Chicago City Council election.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the chapter's internal debate over the Raman endorsement on August 29.
A fire Wednesday at an abandoned Babcock Avenue property in Studio City, where neighbors reported encampments and years of unanswered complaints, prompted mayoral rivals Karen Bass and Nithya Raman to blame each other for the lot's condition. Raman said her office flagged the property to the mayor's office in November; emails reviewed by the Times show her staff listed it as the second-most urgent of five nuisance properties in her district. Bass said she took action the same day the situation was brought directly to her attention, and city crews cleared and fenced the lot by Friday.
Bass and Raman were the top two vote-getters in the June 2 mayoral primary and met in their first post-primary debate August 19.
Los Angeles Times · on the DSA-LA endorsement vote in the Los Angeles mayor's race
DSA's Los Angeles chapter is holding an online vote on whether to endorse City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a DSA member, in her November 3 runoff against Mayor Karen Bass; Raman needs 60% of the vote to secure the endorsement, more than 6,000 chapter members received ballots, and voting closes Tuesday. Chapter members have argued both sides in essays in Geese magazine, with opponents citing her vote to confirm Jim McDonnell as police chief and her push to rewrite Measure ULA.
DSA-LA declined to endorse in the June 2 primary but recommended Raman in its voter guide, which did not include access to the chapter's get-out-the-vote operation.
LAist reported that Mayor Karen Bass, the first Los Angeles mayor to appoint herself to the LAHSA Commission, missed 13 of 21 commission meetings between mid-August 2025 and now, and has been absent for 25 of 47 meetings since joining in late 2023. LAHSA's bylaws state that commissioners absent four times within a year may be subject to removal; Bass's office said she remained informed of agency business through her other appointees.
The LAHSA Commission oversees roughly $500 million in annual homelessness funding for the joint city-county authority.
The Los Angeles Times examined the time-limited rental subsidy program Councilmember Nithya Raman has championed in the mayor's race: a city consultant set a goal of 600 households moved into leases by July 1, but housing officials reported only three households had moved in by that date, rising to 54 by August 13. Raman has called for the vouchers, at a city-estimated cost of $30,000, as an alternative to Mayor Karen Bass's Inside Safe program, which costs about $82,000 per person per year according to city reports. LAHSA reported last month that the city's unsheltered population rose 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson split the Housing and Homelessness Committee in two this month and removed Raman as chair effective September 1.
Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman held a general-election mayoral debate Wednesday night in Sherman Oaks, clashing over homelessness and policing. Raman said Bass has spent $400 million on Inside Safe while refusing audits and cited 8,000 beds she said were not being managed; Bass disputed Raman's per-room cost figures, saying county reimbursements offset them, and said homelessness declined in Raman's district because of Inside Safe.