Los Angeles elects Karen Bass as first woman mayor


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Bass received endorsements from Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary Hillary Clinton. (Daily Trojan file photo)

More than 400,000 Angelenos voted to elect Rep. Karen Bass, 69, as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles in a 53% to 47% race. She is the first woman and the second Black politician to hold the office.

Bass, a 2015 graduate of the Dworak School of Social Work, overwhelmingly defeated opponent property developer Rick Caruso, also a USC alum. 

The Los Angeles County Registrar spent over a week tallying and confirming close to two million ballots, though reporting only about 760,000 votes for mayor. Preliminary election night results showed Bass and Caruso about even in polls before Caruso overtook her by a slight margin. Bass took a lead on Nov. 11 and has maintained strength since then as absentee ballots increasingly voted in her favor.

When Bass announced her candidacy last year on Sept. 27, public opinion favored her strongly over Caruso at 22% to 6%, according to a Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates poll. Still, the race narrowed acutely as the Nov. 8 deadline approached. Bass received 43.1% of votes in the June 7 primary against Caruso’s 36%, advancing both to the Nov. 8 general election.

That gap narrowed after the primary elections. In August, voters favored Bass to Caruso 43% to 31%. In September, it shrunk again to 34% to 31%.

Late October polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found 45% of likely voters planned to vote for Bass compared to Caruso’s 41%. 

Aggressive advertising campaigns from both candidates likely played a part in predictive polling; this fall’s race is the most expensive mayoral race in L.A. history. Caruso spent over $100 million dollars — much of it his own — on his candidacy, compared to Bass’s $9 million, according to the L.A. City Ethics Commission’s Nov. 2 report.

Much of Bass’ advertising campaign focused on her extensive work in politics and lifelong Democratic party membership, countering Caruso’s platform as a non-politician.

Her work in government and community structuring began in the late 1980s. After graduating from the Keck School of Medicine’s Physician Assistant program in 1982 and CSU-Dominguez Hills in 1990, Bass formed the Community Coalition amid the crack-cocaine and gang violence crisis impacting the city at the time.

Since then, Bass has held numerous official positions in government. She represented California’s 47th State Assembly district from 2005 to 2008, during which she became the first Black woman elected as Speaker of the Assembly. Bass then served one term as a representative for California’s 33rd congressional district from 2011 to 2013. After redistricting, Bass served the 37th congressional district from 2013 to 2020, leaving office to run for mayor.

Bass has received endorsements from Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary Hillary Clinton. Both California Senators, Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein, have endorsed her, in addition to an official endorsement from the L.A. Times.

Bass ran on a platform that largely targeted the city’s homelessness crisis, emphasizing additional public safety and crime prevention measures. She vowed to house at least 15,000 Angelenos by the end of her first year, build additional temporary and permanent housing units and increase job programs for people experiencing homelessness.

Bass also stated intentions to hire more police officers and restore LAPD to its full capacity, as well as establish an Office of Community Safety within the mayor’s office.