Who Won the Debate: Bass vs. Raman

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Los Angeles mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Nithya Raman

Dear Friends,

We had planned to send this update shortly after the June primary. Then client work, city projects, airport issues, meetings in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and a few too many late nights got in the way.

In a way, we are glad we waited.

Election-night reactions are fun. The first vote drops are addictive. The hot takes come fast. But the real story usually takes longer to come into focus.

Now that the ballots have been counted, the results have settled, and the campaigns are beginning to pivot toward November, the message from California voters feels even clearer:

They are not just voting on ideology.

They are not just voting on endorsements.

They are not just voting on résumés.

They are voting on whether government feels like it is working.

That is also the lens through which we see this work every day at Daley Strategies.

Over the last several weeks, our team has been moving between Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Sacramento, and client calls across the state, working on issues that are not abstract at all — housing, homelessness, disability services, public safety, infrastructure, economic development, airports, entertainment, local government, and the daily work of trying to move complicated things forward.

Michael Yosef continues to thrive leading policy and advocacy work with clients like NAMI GLAC and ETTA, working closely with Samantha Reed, our newest team member. Debby Chen is doing great work helping lead our engagement with one of our newest clients, the Television Academy. Mark Waier and Charlie Golden continue advancing our work around the modernization of the Palm Springs Convention Center. And across the firm, our team is doing the kind of thoughtful, persistent, behind-the-scenes work that helps clients navigate complex political and public policy environments.

Debby Chen, Michael Yosef, Assembly Member Chris Ward, Gabriele Almon (Senior Director of Advocacy of the Television Academy) and Anne Vasquez (Executive Director of the Television Academy Foundation)

That work shapes how we look at elections.

Not politics as sport.

Not politics as gossip.

Not politics as personality.

Politics as results.

And since Election Day, Los Angeles has given us several reminders of that reality. The Boyle Heights warehouse fire, the angry town halls, the homelessness count, the fight over housing, the scramble for endorsements, and the early positioning in the Bass-Raman runoff all point to the same underlying question voters are asking: Are things getting better fast enough?

Boyle Heights warehouse fire

For a lot of voters, especially in Los Angeles, the answer is still no — and that question is the thread running through everything below: three takeaways from the primary and our winners and losers.

Three Signs Voters Have Run Out of Patience

Ground zero: Los Angeles is where California politics live now.

Bass finished first with just 34.27% of the vote; Raman surged to second with 29.02%; Pratt took 25.53% and fell short. Nearly two-thirds of voters chose someone other than the incumbent mayor. Bass remains well-funded and well-connected, but voters are judging City Hall on homelessness (up citywide even as it fell in Raman’s own district), the response to the Boyle Heights fire, and whether leadership feels present and in command — not just compassionate. Raman picked up a major Carpenters endorsement, a union that backed Bass last cycle, but still has to prove she can run the city, not just critique it. Bass will campaign on experience; Raman on urgency. November is a referendum on which one voters find more credible.

Money, endorsements, labor — still not enough.

Tom Steyer had the money. Brian Goldsmith had institutional support. Hydee Feldstein Soto had the incumbency. None of it saved them. Voters are applying a simpler test — can this person solve problems? — which is why steady performers like Lindsey Horvath, Katy Yaroslavsky, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Tim McOsker, Monica Rodriguez, Kenneth Mejia, and Brad Sherman won big while others stumbled. This wasn’t an anti-incumbent wave. It was an anti-underperformance one.

Change, yes. Revolution, no.

Voters didn’t stampede to either ideological extreme. Becerra’s comeback shows experience still counts; Hilton’s advance shows real frustration with the state’s direction; Raman’s surge shows appetite for a sharper critique of City Hall; Sherman’s survival shows relationships still matter. The common thread isn’t ideology — it’s credibility. Voters want change, but only from people they believe can actually govern.

So who actually came out ahead in a primary defined by patience running thin — and who got caught flat-footed by it? Here is our read on the winners and losers.

Winners

Xavier Becerra — Six months ago, many had written him off. Today he’s the Democratic nominee and clear frontrunner for governor, running on a long governing résumé — former member of Congress, former California attorney general, former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. The general election now strongly favors him, and the campaign will shape the debate over affordability, healthcare, and whether one-party control is delivering results.

Nithya Raman — Raman did more than make the runoff — she changed the conversation in Los Angeles, turning a race many expected Bass to control into a real debate about execution and accountability. She’s since gained more momentum from the homelessness count, her own district’s numbers, and a Carpenters endorsement that previously backed Bass. Her challenge now: prove she can manage the city, not just critique it.

Lindsey Horvath — Horvath may have had one of the strongest performances of the cycle. She took on some of the hardest issues in LA County — homelessness governance, ethics reform, wildfire recovery — and still won convincingly, suggesting voters will reward officials who take risks when they believe it’s driving outcomes.

Steve Hilton — Hilton is likely a longshot in November, but he did what he needed to in the primary: consolidate Republican and change-oriented voters into a runoff spot and a statewide platform. His challenge is credibility — can he make this about affordability and competence, or does it become a referendum on Trump in a deep-blue state?

John Erickson — In State Senate District 24, Erickson finished first in a crowded, expensive race despite major independent expenditures and opponents with heavyweight endorsements — proof that local relationships and relentlessness still count.

Spencer Pratt’s voters — Pratt lost, but his voters tapped into something real: deep frustration with homelessness, public safety, and a sense that Los Angeles isn’t working. The candidate didn’t make the runoff. The frustration did.

Marissa Roy & John McKinney — The city attorney’s race was one of the clearest ‘voters wanted change’ results of the primary — Roy and McKinney didn’t just make the runoff, they knocked out an incumbent by defining themselves more clearly than the officeholder did.

Marni von Wilpert — CA-48 is going to be one of the most important congressional races in the country, and von Wilpert did what Democrats needed: survive a crowded primary to take on Jim Desmond. Expect national money and attention on this one.

Fiona Ma & Gloria Romero — The lieutenant governor’s race produced an important result: Ma and Romero advanced while several younger, more ambitious Democrats fell short, proving familiarity and clarity still matter in a low-profile contest.

Sonja Shaw & Richard Barrera — Shaw and Barrera finished first and second for Superintendent of Public Instruction in a crowded field that included several current and former legislators — a race that could end up far more visible than people expect.

Steady local incumbents — Katy Yaroslavsky, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Tim McOsker, Monica Rodriguez, Kenneth Mejia, Brad Sherman, and others showed voters aren’t simply angry at everyone in office. This wasn’t a blind anti-incumbent wave — it was more targeted than that.

Losers

Tom Steyer — This was a very expensive miss. Steyer had money and a serious campaign operation but never found the emotional connection with voters his spending required. In a year when voters were skeptical of insiders and billionaires, more than $200 million wasn’t enough to buy trust.

Karen Bass — Bass finished first and may still win reelection, but an incumbent mayor with her résumé and institutional support pulling only about a third of the vote is a serious warning sign. Voters are judging City Hall on results, and she has to show not just compassion, but command.

Hydee Feldstein Soto — The city attorney’s race delivered one of the clearest rebukes of the primary. Feldstein Soto didn’t just underperform — she failed to make the runoff, a brutal outcome for an incumbent citywide officeholder.

Katie Porter — Porter spent years building one of the strongest political brands in California, but the campaign never caught fire, and the conversation shifted toward questions about temperament. Brand strength can take years to build and only months to damage.

Eric Swalwell — Swalwell may be the most dramatic political collapse of the cycle — he entered with national visibility and a clear anti-Trump brand, then imploded and suspended his bid, clearing the path for Becerra to rise.

Chad Bianco — For a while, Bianco looked like he might help create the two-Republicans-in-the-runoff scenario Democrats feared. Instead, Hilton broke through and Bianco was left behind, his law-and-order message not reaching a broad enough audience.

Michael Tubbs & Josh Fryday — Two credible young Democrats with real stories to tell, but both finished behind Ma and Romero and missed the top two for lieutenant governor — a real setback for ambitious Democrats trying to build statewide relevance.

The old endorsement machine — Endorsements still help, but this primary made clear they aren’t magic. A wall of endorsements can create momentum, but it can’t substitute for connection, urgency, and trust.

Bass vs. Raman: Who Won the Night?

August 19, 2026 Mayoral Debate

Raman (Slightly) Won the Night. Now Comes the Hard Part.

If the first two Bass-Raman debates belonged to Karen Bass, the latest one in Sherman Oaks belonged to Nithya Raman. Not by knockout at all, but clearly on points. Raman was sharper, calmer and much better at turning Bass’s attacks back on the incumbent. Bass landed real punches questioning Raman’s missed Council votes, hammering her stewardship of the homelessness committee and reminding voters that Raman opposed the hiring of 170 police officers before now arguing that LAPD staffing should remain steady. But Raman didn’t wilt. When Bass challenged her absences, Raman noted that some came from serving on regional boards Bass herself appointed her to. And when the interruptions piled up, Raman delivered the line of the night: “You’ve got to let me answer, Mayor Bass. This is my time.” The room noticed. So did the press.

Raman’s most effective punch, though, wasn’t personal — it was managerial. She kept returning to the argument that Los Angeles feels rudderless: homelessness remains painfully visible, basic city services have been squeezed, and voters aren’t seeing enough urgency or accountability from City Hall. Bass countered with Inside Safe, police retention and a blunt argument that Raman has had six years in city government herself and has produced more plans than results. That’s a potentially powerful case. But on this night, Bass too often looked like the challenger — irritated, interrupting and prosecuting Raman’s résumé while Raman managed to look like the candidate asking voters to expect more from the person already in charge. Even a largely Bass-friendly room increasingly applauded Raman as the evening went on.

What the Numbers Say — And Why This Race May Be Closer Than It Looks

The debate matters because of the political landscape underneath it. Bass is the incumbent mayor of Los Angeles, with enormous name recognition, a substantial fundraising advantage and deep institutional support — and this race is still genuinely competitive. In June, she finished first with just 34.27% of the vote. Raman received 29.02% and Spencer Pratt 25.53%, meaning roughly two-thirds of primary voters chose someone other than the sitting mayor. That is not where an incumbent wants to begin a general election. And Bass enters the fall carrying vulnerabilities that haven’t disappeared: criticism of her handling of the Palisades fire helped drive her unfavorable rating to 56% in a Berkeley IGS-Times poll earlier this year, while the Boyle Heights Lineage fire produced angry community meetings, boos directed at the mayor and warnings from political analysts that the episode could erode support among Eastside Latino voters she carried strongly in June.

And despite all the political chatter, we really don’t know what a credible poll taken today would show. The much-publicized survey claiming Bass had opened a double-digit lead turned out to be completely fake. The last major credible public head-to-head we found — the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll conducted before the primary — actually had Raman at 32% and Bass at 28% among registered voters, with a huge share still undecided or choosing neither candidate. That poll is now dated and should not be treated as a current snapshot, but it is another reason not to assume this is a comfortable incumbent’s race. There are 66 days until Election Day. That’s a political lifetime. Bass has time to stabilize the race, sharpen her argument for a second term and use the considerable advantages of incumbency; Raman has time to build on the debate, define herself beyond being the anti-Bass candidate and compete for the Pratt voters who could decide this election. A lot can change on both sides before November 3. But one thing already seems clear from the primary results and the coverage since: Los Angeles has a real mayor’s race — and for an incumbent, the fact that it is this competitive is itself part of the story.

The Bottom Line

Voters are tired of being told problems are complicated. They already know that — they want them solved. The candidates who understand that operationally, not just rhetorically, are the ones to watch in November.

Cheers,

Daley Strategies Team