How Mayor Karen Bass weathered a brutal campaign and won a spot in the Nov. 3 runoff

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass took office four years ago with a reputation as a coalition builder — someone capable of bringing competing factions together to achieve a common goal.On Wednesday, that goal became Bass’ reelection this fall.In a bruising primary campaign, a broad coalition of supporters assembled by the mayor helped her secure a spot in the Nov.

3 runoff, even as her top two rivals — reality TV personality Spencer Pratt and City Councilmember Nithya Raman — battled for the second spot on the ballot.The mayor’s coalition featured organized labor, including the powerful police officers’ union; business leaders, working closely with Airbnb; the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, including key elected officials; and immigrant rights groups who applauded Bass for her condemnation of federal ICE raids.“You don’t often get business and labor on the same side.You don’t often get police and progressives on the same side,” said political strategist Kerman Maddox, a longtime friend of Bass, not long after the Associated Press declared Tuesday that Bass would make the runoff.

“She did it tonight, and we’re going to do it again in the runoff.”It wasn’t yet clear Wednesday which opponent Bass will face.Mail-in ballots with an election day postmark will be accepted by county election officials through Tuesday.

Although Pratt was leading Raman in partial returns, hundreds of thousands of ballots likely remain to be counted.Bass faced withering criticism over the course of the campaign, with her rivals blasting her leadership on homelessness, housing production and the January 2025 Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.She was mocked in a series of AI videos made by Pratt supporters, many of them reposted by Pratt, including one that portrayed her as the Joker from Batman.By assembling a diverse coalition of instit...