It will take about a month for Los Angeles to finally count all of its votes, but we already have some good news and bad news in the city’s race for mayor.It starts with the bad news: Mayor Karen Bass has advanced to the top two runoff. Bass has been an undeniable failure, particularly with her incompetence in dealing with the wildfires that burned thousands of homes in January 2025. With approximately 62% of the votes tallied, Bass has won 35%, meaning she will again be on the ballot in November.
The good news is that this is still quite the repudiation of Bass. For an incumbent mayor, 35% of the vote in what is essentially a three-horse race is an unimpressive showing. Her top two viable challengers, Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman, have combined for about 53% of the vote, showing voter dissatisfaction with Bass’s tenure. What is most notable is that Bass has been dragged to a runoff, a rarity among incumbent Los Angeles mayors. (If a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the primary, they avoid a runoff outright.)
Since 1969, only three incumbent mayors in the city have faced a runoff. Sam Yorty faced a run-off in both 1969, which he won, and 1973, when he lost to Tony Bradley. Bradley then won four straight reelections, including one rematch with Yorty, without ever facing a runoff. Other than Yorty, James Hahn was the only other incumbent to be forced into a runoff, where he lost in a rematch against Antonio Villaraigosa. Richard Riordan (1997), Villaraigosa (2009), and Eric Garcetti (2017) won the race outright in the primaries for their reelection campaigns.
