Councilwoman Nithya Raman Leads Mayor Karen Bass With L.A. Latino Voters, Poll Finds

Likely Latino voters split 45% to 21% for Raman in a UC Berkeley poll, with a third of them still undecided.

Councilwoman Nithya Raman leads Mayor Karen Bass by 24 points among likely Latino voters in Los Angeles a month before Election Day, a poll found.

Those are voters Bass won in the June 2 primary. She carried 35 of L.A.'s 43 majority-Latino neighborhoods that day, the Times reported. Raman took seven. The new survey puts Raman at 45% with that group and Bass at 21%. A third of them haven't picked either one.

The poll came from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. It was taken online in English and Spanish from Sept. 15 to 20, the Times reported.

It reached 2,150 likely city voters, NBC Los Angeles and FOX 11 reported. The overall margin of error is about 3 percentage points. The Latino figures, which ABC7 Los Angeles also reported, come from a slice of that sample. The subgroup's own margin wasn't published, and it's wider than the overall one.

Across all likely voters, Raman had 39% and Bass had 28%, NBC Los Angeles reported. Another 33% were undecided. The survey came out on Sept. 23. That day, the Globe reported that the primary winner had fallen 11 points behind.

The race looked different in August. On Aug. 18, the Globe reported that the two were heading into their first general-election debate, in Sherman Oaks. Bass led Raman 34% to 29% at the time. A day earlier, the Globe reported that Bass had posted a poll showing her up 12 points, and that the poll's author said it was fake.

Bass doesn't accept the new numbers. "It's completely different from our numbers and the numbers we're seeing in the field," she told ABC7 on Oct. 2 in Westlake, where the Pilipino Action Center, a progressive group, endorsed her with Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado at her side. Her campaign also disputes the poll's online method, the Times reported.

The campaigns' private surveys point in opposite directions. An August poll from the Bass campaign had her up 2 points with Latino voters, the Times reported. A September poll from Raman's campaign had Raman up 13 with the same group, the Times reported.

"There is broad support because I have been involved in the Latino community for decades," Bass told ABC7. The Berkeley poll splits that support by age. Latino voters 50 and older backed Bass. She led that group 36% to 26%, the Times reported. Younger Latinos, ages 18 to 49, went the other way. Raman led them 60% to 9%.

Bass is selling experience. "It's one thing to have big ideas, it's another thing to have a track record," she told ABC7, describing Raman as someone who's spent twice as long at City Hall as she has with little to show for it.

Raman's campaign said in a statement that her message on the cost of living is reaching Latino voters, many of whom, it said, feel let down by the Bass administration. It pointed to Raman's own story as an immigrant, her work for renters, lower fees for street vendors and the city's sanctuary ordinance, which the campaign said she wrote.

Early voting is already open. The last day to vote in the mayor's race is Nov. 3.

Source: abc7.com, retrieved October 3, 2026.