A large, waning moon shone over Los Angeles on election night, a metaphor for a trend that emerged early in the return.
The political organization of this city seems to be retreating in favor of the rebels from the left and the right.
Mayor Karen Bass has taken a hit in her bid for a second term, and the Associated Press announced that she is running for the November election. But the scant support he has received so far has shown that many voters in the blue-chip city do not have enough faith in the Democratic minister to return him to office. Instead, many chose self-proclaimed candidates from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt and Democratic Socialist City Council member Nithya Raman.
Raman launched his campaign at the last minute, just weeks after endorsing his longtime partner Bass, finding that enough Angelenos were tired of the incumbent and would join his message of change inside City Hall.
Raman’s mind was right. Voters wanted change. But they did not see him as a challenge to the status quo – for many, he is something current situation.
The mayoral hopeful didn’t mention the platform that left Bass’, and it showed voters’ dislike of his muddled messages: he finished the night in third place. If current results hold, Bass will face Pratt in the playoffs.
At Raman’s election night party at Boomtown Brewery on the outskirts of Little Tokyo, I saw why his chances of becoming LA’s next mayor were slim from the start. The meeting felt like happy hour at a Silver Lake bar: much whiter than the rest of town, with few Latinos. His speech to a packed house was full of MAGA-tinged rhetoric, which isn’t exactly political in LA politics. It was a strange thing cri de coeur and to present a campaign that was sufficiently informal for those, like Pratt’s, who wanted radical change, while offering nothing new to Bass’s supporters.
However, Raman is adamant that he opened something that changes.
“Together, we built something amazing,” he said happily. “And it gives me great motivation to be a part of it, an organization that is not funded by critics or political insiders, but by ordinary people who still believe that Los Angeles is worth fighting for.”
Raman then entered the dance floor to greet well-wishers, pumping his fist as the DJ blasted Daft Punk’s “Lose Yourself to Dance.”
A billboard for LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt near MacArthur Park on June 2, 2026.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Across town in West Los Angeles, Pratt was happy in his second home, enjoying a Mexican dinner with friends and family. It was the peaceful end of a spring of anti-Bass (“Karen Basura”), non-profit organizations, homeless people (“zombies”) and anything that stirred Democratic pieties, just as the Republicans vowed to campaign all ideas in a fair race.
Long dismissed as a joke, Pratt rightly judged that Angelenos are angry and no longer want to be polite about it. He and his supporters will take his unexpected rise as a mandate to double down against liberal LA
But if Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, is going to run for the general election and is determined to win, he needs to learn from a political movement successfully pursued by his opponent, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Six years ago this spring, the LA political party labeled DSA-LA as roast the first in their long-running quest to get politician Nithya Raman elected to the city council. Even when Raman and three other DSA members joined the council, skeptics dismissed them and their progressive policies as a misstep that didn’t reflect how Angelenos really wanted the city to work.
On Tuesday night, four of the six DSA-endorsed candidates in the L.A. city election were in first place by large margins and one came in second place, demonstrating DSA’s multicultural, citywide reach. In a sign of its new royal status, the local chapter refused to endorse Raman or any other mayoral candidate. Without such strong support, their trailblazer, and DSA member Rae Huang, withered on the vine of their revolutionary LA.
Councilman Hugo Soto-Martínez and LA Unified school board member Rocío Rivas appear to be cruising to outright victories. Marissa Roy was on her way to a race to unseat the incumbent city attorney, Hydee Feldstein Soto, who was third in her initial return. In the 9th District, where Curren Price is running out, Estuardo Mazariegos sat comfortably in second place and looked to challenge his Latino counterpart in a race that will see South Los Angeles elect its first non-black member in 63 years.
The most surprising result involved Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who became a punching bag, and Bass, for people who thought LA had turned hell. Black money groups, which don’t have to reveal where their funding comes from, have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into bad mailers. Opponents of his seat raided drug dealers and gangs in the MacArthur Park area as an offense against his leadership, criticizing him during debates and on social media.
Even Hernandez supporters were worried about what might happen on election night. But when I arrived at his raucous soirée in Highland Park, an early return showed him his way to the front of the field and perhaps avoiding the run.
“It’s reassuring to see [DSA’s success],” he said as excited fans lined up around him to get tattoos — real ink, not temporary — of hummingbirds, his campaign symbol. “That means people see us. That means people want more.”
Hernandez pointed to fellow DSA member, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“What happened with DSA there did not happen overnight,” he said. “In LA, we’re getting there.”
A table full of campaign buttons for Council Member Hugo Soto-Martinez, who is running for re-election this year and is expected to win outright.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
LA has never been a land of Trumpers and closet commies, of course. Two incumbent council members who are centrist Democrats are also on their way to easy wins, with Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez running for a third term as she was unopposed. Timothy Gaspar and Barry Worth Girvan are leading their challengers for the San Fernando Valley council seat being vacated by Bob Blumenfield due to term limits.
But anyone who wants to win in Los Angeles needs to realize that a sense of unreality is in the air.
At the same time, I reminded the supporters of the victorious populists to look up at the sky and remember their Shakespeare.
“Oh, swear not the moon, the never-ending moon / Those monthly changes in her circle / Lest your love change likewise,” Romeo warns Juliet.
Politics, like him this onewaxes and wanes whether we like it or not, and anyone betting on permanent change at City Hall will likely lose.
Angelenos have declared that they want radical change. But how will they feel in November?
