Here's What to Know About the Los Angeles Mayor's Race

The Los Angeles mayor’s race got off to a rollicking start as the filing deadline arrived this weekend, with more than three dozen candidates, including one of the city’s best-known progressives, declaring their intent to challenge Mayor Karen Bass.

The mayor, a nationally known Democrat and a former congresswoman who at one point was on President Biden’s vice-presidential short list, won decisively in 2022 when she ran for her liberal hometown’s highest office.

For three years, her approval ratings soared as she led the nation’s second-largest city back from the trauma of the pandemic. Crime rates fell. Business inched back. Sprawling tent camps were removed and their inhabitants were coaxed into shelters.

Then, on Jan. 7, 2025, a wildfire swept through Pacific Palisades, one of the most affluent communities in Los Angeles, and everything changed.




https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/us/los-angeles-mayor-race.html