Karen Bass in trouble after ‘downright devastating’ new poll ahead of LA mayoral primary

With has just over two months left until the mayoral primary, a majority of Los Angeles voters are fed up with Mayor Karen Bass, according to a new poll described as “downright devastating.”

The incumbent leader still leads the pack, albeit with just 25% of voter support, but roughly 25% of Angelenos are still undecided, according to a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll.

Meanwhile, ultra-left City Councilwoman Nithya Raman and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt are gaining on Bass, garnering 17% and 15% of voter support, respectively, the poll shows.

More concerning is Bass’s unfavorable rating among voters.

A majority — 56% of likely voters — view the mayor negatively, while 13% said they have no opinion.

“These are very discouraging, if not downright devastating, poll numbers for Karen Bass,” Dan Schnur, a political communications lecturer at USC and UC Berkeley, told ABC7 Eyewitness News.

“She’s running ahead of her opponents only because they are not very well known. That she’s having this much trouble against such a little-known field bodes very, very poorly for her,” he added.

“The only thing saving her at this point is that top-tier candidates who were considering running decided to stay out of the race.”

Bass’s declining support is tied, in part, to her botched handling of the deadly 2025 Palisades Fires that killed at least 31 people and damaged or destroyed roughly 18,000 structures across the region — including the home of mayoral contender Pratt.

Critics say City Hall was slow to respond and mishandled public communication as evacuation orders were issued. Bass was overseas in Ghana when the fires broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, drawing additional scrutiny.

She has also faced questions about whether her office influenced edits to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s after-action report on the Palisades Fire to cast officials in a more favorable light.

The mayoral primary is set for June 2. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two will advance to a November runoff.

Still, history may be on Bass’s side.

“Generally speaking, Angelenos tend to reelect their mayors. You have to go back more than 20 years, to 2005, to find the last mayor, James Hahn, who was not reelected,” Schnur told the network.

“So voters in Los Angeles tend to be pretty forgiving, even if they’re not seeing dramatic progress. But this poll, and this election, isn’t about broader progress on issues like housing and homelessness,” he added.

The first debate of the race took place Monday night, though Bass and Pratt did not take part.

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