Bass Erases Raman's 11-Point Lead in L.A. Mayor's Race, Poll Finds

Spencer Pratt's primary voters moved toward the mayor, the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times pollster says, leaving each candidate at 40%.

Mayor Karen Bass has wiped out Councilmember Nithya Raman's double-digit lead in the Los Angeles mayor's race, a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times found Wednesday.

Each candidate now has 40% of likely voters and 19% are undecided, the Times reported, with the Nov. 3 runoff six days away. The online survey reached 2,197 likely city voters in English and Spanish from Oct. 19 to 25, and its error margin is roughly 3 points either way. ABC7 also reported the tie Wednesday.

Most of the swing came from voters who didn't pick either of them in June. Spencer Pratt, the Republican reality TV personality, finished third in the primary with 26%. "The Pratt voters are the biggest insertion," Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director, told the Times.

In September, 22% of Pratt's voters said they'd back Bass. Now 41% do, while Raman's share of them slipped to 14%, according to the Times. Pratt himself has given neither candidate his endorsement and still takes shots at Bass and Raman alike on social media, the Times reported.

Five weeks ago the same poll had Raman ahead, 39% to 28%, with about a third of voters undecided, CBS Los Angeles reported. "I do not view her as the frontrunner," Bass told CBS Los Angeles then, and she predicted a tight race. Neither candidate had ever cleared 40% in the series, the Times noted.

Bass got there while still deeply unpopular. Sixty-five percent still view her unfavorably, the Times reported. The change was in how voters see Raman. Her negatives now outrun her positives, 49% to 42%, which hadn't happened in any Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll this cycle.

That shift followed weeks of attacks from Bass and her allies, who've branded Raman "not ready for prime time," according to the Times. One of those attacks targeted a debate answer in which Raman held up the LAPD's immigration noncooperation under former Chief Daryl F. Gates as the "gold standard," the Times reported. She later apologized for invoking Gates. DiCamillo told the Times the mayor would probably see the new numbers as proof that her push to put Raman on the defensive is working.

The mayor's gains showed up across the map, too. Raman led the San Fernando Valley by 8 points in September, and Bass now leads it by 11, the Times reported. Black voters consolidated behind the mayor, 71% to 13%, after backing her 48% to 20% in September.

Among Latino voters, Raman's 24-point September edge is down to 3, inside the margin of error for that group. DiCamillo told the Times that older Latinos now make up a bigger share of likely voters, and that helps Bass.

It's tight now. The voters who decide it may be the 45% of Pratt's supporters who still haven't picked a side. DiCamillo told the Times the question about them was simpler than any crosstab: "Will they vote?"

Source: abc7.com, retrieved October 28, 2026. Other sources: yahoo.com, CBS News.