Karen Bass seeks second term as Los Angeles mayor

Mayor Karen Bass is running for a second term as Los Angeles mayor in the Nov. 3, 2026, general election.

Bass faces City Councilmember Nithya V. Raman in the nonpartisan runoff. Bass received 34.3% of the vote in the June 2 primary, becoming the first Los Angeles mayoral incumbent to face a runoff since 2005, according to PBS NewsHour. The race matters directly to Bel Air and Holmby Hills residents, who live within the city of Los Angeles.

Candidate information

Office sought: Los Angeles city mayor
Party: Nonpartisan race
Born: Oct. 3, 1953, in Los Angeles
Raised: Venice/Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles
Education: High school diploma, Hamilton High School (1971); studied philosophy at San Diego State University; certificate in physician assistant, University of Southern California (1982); bachelor's degree in health sciences, California State University, Dominguez Hills (1990); master's degree in social work, University of Southern California (2015)

Experience and public service

Bass, the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles and the first woman and second African American elected to the office, has held public roles spanning health care, community organizing and elected office, according to the city of Los Angeles mayor's office.

Physician assistant, USC Keck School of Medicine (beginning 1982)
Co-founder and executive director, Community Coalition (beginning 1990)
Assembly member, District 47, California State Assembly (2004–2010)
67th speaker, California State Assembly (2008–2010), the first African American woman to lead a state legislative body in U.S. history
U.S. representative, California's 37th Congressional District (2011–2022)
Chair, Congressional Black Caucus (2019–2021)
Mayor, Los Angeles (2022–present)

Bass received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2010 for her leadership in California budget negotiations, according to The HistoryMakers.

On the issues

The following positions are drawn from Bass's campaign website and a Los Angeles Times interview. All claims are the candidate's own.

Homelessness and housing: Bass says she launched Inside Safe, her signature homelessness program, to move people out of encampments and into hotels, motels and eventually permanent homes. She says the program achieved a 17.5% reduction in street homelessness, cutting the number from 33,000 to under 27,000. Bass calls that the first two-year decrease in city history and says she would use a second term to strengthen Inside Safe's services. She also says she fast-tracked approval of 100% affordable housing projects, requiring approval within 60 days. That effort, Bass says, has led the city to green-light more than 40,000 units, with about 6,000 having started construction.

Public safety: Bass says she set a goal to restore LAPD staffing to 9,500 officers and negotiated a pay package with the police union that raised starting salaries while offering retention bonuses. She says she supports tailoring crime response to individual neighborhoods and requiring evidence-based training that includes de-escalation tactics.

Immigration: Bass says she worked with city agencies on strategies for keeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement off city property. She says she personally responded to ICE raids in Los Angeles, including at MacArthur Park, demanding that federal agents leave.

Environment: Bass says addressing climate change requires transforming the economy while correcting decades of environmental injustice in communities overburdened by pollution.