Why the L.A. mayoral runoff is about to be a 'knife fight'

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The gloves are off.Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman have only begun to wage their Nov.3 runoff campaigns, but they’re already trading sharp jabs about each other and their records.“This November, voters will have a clear choice between myself and Nithya Raman, a difference that is made crystal clear because we have been changing L.A., while some people including the councilwoman ...

fought to take L.A.backwards,” Bass said Tuesday in her campaign kickoff event at East End Studios in the city’s Arts District.Bass launched her first salvo over the weekend, as the tally of mail-in votes made clear that Raman would edge out Spencer Pratt to challenge her in the fall election.

Minutes after the results came out, the mayor issued a scorching statement blasting Raman for voting against police hiring and the effort to keep homeless encampments away from schools.Raman accused Bass during the primary of engaging in “pay to play” politics, saying special interests who benefited from the mayor’s decisions — the police union, business groups and Airbnb — spent big on her reelection.Since then, she has described Bass as part of a status quo that voters rejected.“For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections,” Raman said in a statement Monday night, after the Associated Press determined that she would make the runoff.

“Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services, and a city that has stopped working for them.”Despite the attacks, Bass and Raman are aligned on a number of city policies.And because they agree on so many subjects, their best strategy in the runoff will be to tear the other down, said Rob Stutzman, a GOP political strategist in Sacramento.“Neither of them can move credibly that far to the middle,” he said.

“So can Bass scare more...