Karen Bass uses fear to erase Nithya Raman's mayoral lead

By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit · October 29, 2026

Mayor Karen Bass has tied Nithya Raman in the polls by courting conservative voters, a cynical pivot that ignores the city's housing crisis and her own high disapproval.

The political machine is working. A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll shows Mayor Karen Bass and Nithya Raman tied at 40% support. This is not a sign of a healthy democracy. It is a sign of a desperate incumbent using fear to survive.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Bass has erased a double-digit deficit. She is not doing this by fixing the city. She is doing it by pivoting to the right.

The New York Post notes that 19% of voters are undecided. Bass is hunting those voters with a law-and-order message. The shift is clear among the right. In the new poll, 41% of former Spencer Pratt voters back Karen Bass. Meanwhile, 45% of Pratt voters remain undecided.

Bass is reading from that same script to win over the right. She knows fear sells better than a record of failure. This is the same strategy that has haunted American politics for decades.

The mask of law and order

The numbers show a city in pain. The Los Angeles Times reports that 65% of Angelenos view Mayor Bass unfavorably. Her ratings crashed after the January 2025 wildfires. She is not leading by inspiration. She is leading by attrition.

The people are desperate for material relief. In the poll, 43% of voters named homelessness as their top issue. 29% named public safety as their top priority. Another 29% named affordable housing as their top priority.

Bass and the city of Los Angeles represent an entrenched political machine. This machine ignores the rent hikes and the encampments. Instead, it weaponizes anxiety. Bass is courting the base of Spencer Pratt to hide her own failures.

The challenger is not immune to the game. 49% of likely voters view Raman unfavorably. Only 42% have positive views of her. Raman has made mistakes that the machine is happy to use.

The trap of the past

This race is haunted by the Los Angeles riots. The mechanism is the same: the erasure of police brutality and the glorification of a chief who presided over the Rodney King beating serve as a political tool to alienate Black voters and ignore systemic violence.

Nithya Raman stepped right into this trap. She called the tenure of former LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates the "gold standard" for noncooperation with immigration enforcement. Bass quickly attacked her. She said Raman was not familiar with the Black community.

This is a classic move. By focusing on the Gates blunder, Bass shifts the conversation. She moves it away from the current failures of the city. She uses the memory of police brutality to paint her opponent as an outsider. It is a cynical way to secure power.

An advocate for Mayor Bass would say she is the only candidate with the law-and-order credentials to keep Los Angeles safe. They would argue that her ability to consolidate a broad coalition is a sign of strength. But this "strength" is a mask. A mayor with a 65% disapproval rating is not providing order. She is providing a status quo that fails the most vulnerable.

The historical pattern is clear. When the machine is failing, it pivots to fear. This is not a new strategy. It only differs when a candidate actually delivers material relief to the poor. In this race, the material needs of the people are being traded for polling points.

Karen Bass will lean heavily on law-and-order rhetoric and secure a narrow victory in the final days by consolidating the remaining conservative primary voters. She will do this by sidelining the urgent material needs of working-class and unhoused Angelenos. The machine will win, and the people will still be waiting for a home.

Karen Bass uses fear to erase Nithya Raman's mayoral lead

The mask of law and order

The trap of the past

Sources