Political Observer: The New York Times offers sum insights?
Oct 23, 2026
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In a city where incumbent mayors rarely face a serious challenge, Ms. Bass has spent the year fending off well-funded opponents. During the primary, she was attacked relentlessly on social media by Spencer Pratt, 43, a Republican influencer, former reality television star and Palisades fire survivor. Ms. Raman’s supporters include the race’s top donor, Aaron Sosnick, a hedge fund manager who wants the car-centric city to install more bike lanes.
“The race is tight, absolutely,” Ms. Bass acknowledged in a recent interview, hours before a fund-raising event hosted by former Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff. “I have to deal with a lot of the issues and uncertainty and instability caused by what is happening in the White House, but then there are also mistakes that I made.”
The main mistake was inadvertent but fateful. On Jan. 7, 2025, wildfires exploded in Pacific Palisades, claiming the lives of 12 people and destroying thousands of homes. It was a catastrophe for the city — one in a barrage of wildfires across Southern California — but Ms. Bass was out of the country, attending the inauguration of a new president in Ghana at the invitation of the Biden administration.
She rushed back and tried to explain that she never would have left had she grasped what was coming. But Palisades residents — many of whom had voted for her opponent, a civic leader and billionaire in nearby Brentwood — were stunned and then hostile, and her political opponents seized on the opening.
“I am so profoundly sorry that I was not in my city when my city needed me,” she said. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the lives lost, the families that lost their homes, and the families where the home is still standing but they’re not able to be in it.”
Most analysts agree Ms. Bass still has an uphill fight, but haven’t counted her out either. Around one-third of voters have not made up their mind.
