A new poll indicates socialist Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman has opened up a double-digit lead over Democratic Mayor Karen Bass with six weeks to go until Election Day.
Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), stands at 39% support among likely Los Angeles voters in the race for mayor, with Bass at 28%, according to a University of California Berkeley Institute of Government Studies/Los Angeles Times poll released on Wednesday.
The survey, which found that a third of Los Angeles voters remained undecided, grabbed headlines less than two weeks before mail-in ballots are sent out in the Nov. 3 election.
“It’s extraordinarily unusual to see this many undecided voters at this point in the race,” poll director Mark DiCamillio said in a statement.
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The poll indicates many of the current undecided voters were backers of reality TV star and online influencer Spencer Pratt. The conservative-leaning candidate who ran for mayor as an independent was eliminated in the June primary, coming in third with 26% of the vote.
Bass and Raman, who finished first and second with 34% and 29% of the primary vote, advanced to the general election.
According to the poll, 63% of Pratt supporters remain undecided on whom they will back in the general election, with 22% favoring Bass and 16% supporting Raman.
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“I told everyone that if you don’t vote for me, Raman will beat Bass. That’s why she entered the race 10 minutes before the clerk’s office closed. She knew I was gonna destroy Bass 1-on-1. Good luck LA,” Pratt posted on social media, as he pointed to the poll’s findings.
And in a separate post he claimed, “Raman is Karen’s karma. Stabbed in the back by the commie she campaigned for, took pictures with her family… the moment Nithya saw an opening, she knifed Karen. Good lesson to all you democrats: NEVER trust the DSA. Socialists have no morals. They’ll gut you, too.”
Pratt’s post included a past video of Bass supporting Raman for her 2024 re-election to the city council.
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The new poll indicates that Bass is being weighed down by a 63% unfavorable rating among LA voters, with just 28% holding a positive view of the mayor. By comparison, 40% held a favorable view of Raman, with 39% seeing her in an unfavorable light.
The survey also pointed to a large generational gap, with the 45-year-old Raman overwhelmingly winning voters 18 to 39, while Bass led among those 65 and older by 20 points.
Raman landed the endorsement of the DSA’s LA chapter earlier this month, and she’s also backed by some of the city’s local unions.
The mayor, a former state lawmaker who was later elected to the U.S. House, is supported by members of Congress and the state legislature as well as LA County officials.
The survey, which was conducted online, questioned 2,150 likely LA voters between Sept. 15 and 20. It had a margin of error of approximately 3 percentage points.
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Raman quickly highlighted the poll after its release.
“Big news! In the latest Berkeley/LA Times poll, we’ve surged ahead of Mayor Bass with an 11 point lead. This poll reflects the momentum we’re seeing on the ground. Angelenos are ready for change and want to see a City That Works. But we can’t take our foot off the gas!” Raman wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Bass took aim at the poll.
“One outlier poll which got the June primary wrong, means very little with 40 days to go,” the mayor argued in a social media post. “This is going to be a close race, and we’re in it to win. Let’s get to work!”
