What’s Going on With the LA Mayoral Race? A Closer Look
The long shadow of last year’s LA wildfires, coupled with the presence of ICE, have paved the way for a highly publicized mayoral primary in Los Angeles. Here’s a breakdown of the field.
Reported by Vogue.
Los Angeles has never been easy to govern — John Mulaney called it out in 2024, joking that you could cruise the city and assume it had no mayor at all. A year after wildfires leveled entire neighborhoods and ICE escalated raids on immigrant communities, that observation hits differently. What it's also produced, according to Vogue, is one of the most watched mayoral primaries in the city's recent memory.
The Left Has Options
The progressive lane is crowded. Rae Huang — Presbyterian minister, single mother, daughter of Taiwanese immigrants — is running on free public transit and accessible childcare, with endorsements from Sunrise Movement LA, La Defensa, and Black Lives Matter LA founder Dr. Melina Abdullah. Her campaign frames the entire race around a single idea: that power belongs to the people, and right now, it doesn't. Then there's Nithya Raman, LA City Council member for the 4th District since 2020, who co-founded the SELAH Neighborhood Homelessness Coalition and helped push through the city's first strengthened rent stabilization ordinance in 40 years. Her celebrity support — Mindy Kaling, Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation creator Michael Schur — makes sense given her marriage to comedy writer Vali Chandrasekaran and her vocal push to bring film and TV production back to LA. But Raman is adamant her coalition runs deeper: "renters, workers, immigrants, artists, and families," she told Vogue, in a campaign she says takes zero corporate funding.
Incumbent Karen Bass, who co-chaired the Congressional Black Caucus for three of her 12 years in Congress and defeated Rick Caruso in 2022, is running to hold what she already has — and struggling. The wildfires cost her politically. A 2025 LA Times report linked her office to attempts to downplay the city's and LAFD's failures in wildfire response, and her campaign didn't respond to Vogue's request for comment.
And then there is Spencer Pratt. The former Hills cast member and current crystal merchant entered the race exactly one year after losing his Palisades home in the fires, and has since secured endorsements from Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, singer Katharine McPhee, and Donald Trump. He's calling for an expanded LAPD budget, plastering anti-Raman ads near Silver Lake bars, and promising Eagle Rock a "new golden age." Notably, some moderate Democrats are quietly gravitating toward him — one Los Feliz-based screenwriter told independent outlet L.A. Material that small, discreet support groups are forming, even if no one's advertising it at dinner.
As of May 29, Bass sits at 26%, Raman at 25%, and Pratt at 22% — a statistical dead heat that perfectly reflects how wide open this race actually is. Whether LA's next chapter is written by a progressive councilwoman, a stumbling incumbent, or a reality TV alum with a crystal business is genuinely unclear, and that chaos, somehow, feels entirely on brand for this city.
LA has always been ungovernable in the most fascinating way — and whoever wins in 2025, that's not changing anytime soon.
Read the original at Vogue.
