Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was driving comparatively excessive two months in the past, weathering pitched challenges from Spencer Pratt on the suitable and Nithya Raman on the left to emerge as the highest vote-getter within the metropolis’s June 2 mayoral main.
“Tomorrow begins the second half of this journey,” an ebullient Bass instructed supporters on the Line Resort in Koreatown on election evening.
There’s been loads much less to cheer about these days.
Bass’ summer season has been beset by a string of unfavorable information. Employees members on each her marketing campaign and administration groups have left. She was away from the town — simply as she was initially of the devastating 2025 firestorms — when a blaze ignited on the Lineage cold-storage meals warehouse in Boyle Heights, inundating the closely Latino surrounding neighborhoods with noxious fumes.
And that was all earlier than the discharge of a brand new report displaying that homelessness within the metropolis rose for the primary time in three years, undercutting a pillar of Bass’ fall runoff marketing campaign in opposition to Raman.
“By way of coverage, politics and operations, I don’t know if there was a single piece of excellent information that has come out of her camp for the reason that main,” mentioned Dan Schnur, a professor of political communications at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“Bass’ solely potential path to reelection at this level is elevating a lot cash that Raman merely can’t be heard,” Schnur mentioned.
With three months to go within the marketing campaign, Schnur and different analysts say Bass has time to show issues round. Nonetheless, they are saying, the summer season of unhealthy information will pressure Bass to reset her marketing campaign narrative — together with shoring up her help with Eastside Latinos within the wake of the Lineage fireplace.
Bass carried 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods within the June 2 election, together with Boyle Heights, in comparison with seven for Raman and only one for Pratt. But when she attended a neighborhood assembly in early July within the wake of the Lineage fireplace, she was met with boos from the largely Latino crowd.
“The Lineage fireplace has deeply eroded the Latino help she was getting from the japanese facet of the town, which she wanted to construct in direction of November. That’s going to be an actual problem for her now,” mentioned Sara Sadhwani, a professor of politics at Pomona School.
Bass was in Chicago on the dedication of the Barack Obama Presidential Middle when the hearth broke out and returned to Los Angeles the following night as the hearth continued to burn, casting a black plume of smoke over the neighborhood and leaving a stench for weeks as meals rotted within the burnt constructing.
The episode was a stark reminder that Bass was overseas on a diplomatic journey in Ghana initially of the lethal Palisades fireplace in Los Angeles in January 2025. Excessive winds and elevated fireplace threat had been forecast as she departed for Africa.
“It reinforces the narrative of the Palisades, her being out of city,” mentioned Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science and Chicana/o Latina/o research at Loyola Marymount College.
At a information convention Friday, Bass ordered metropolis businesses to delay the processing of rebuilding permits for the Lineage burned-out cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights till regulators have discovered methods to topic the mission to strict environmental overview.
“They shouldn’t even take into consideration rebuilding till they’ve cleaned up the mess they’ve created,” Bass instructed reporters.
The tough line Bass is taking in opposition to Lineage, nonetheless, comes after disclosures that considered one of her former high advisors, Yusef Robb, had taken on a job doing disaster communications for extremely scrutinized firm.
Robb spent the primary half of the 12 months working for Bass as an unpaid spokesperson, delivering statements for the mayor on a number of the most controversial points she confronted, together with allegations that she watered down an after-action report on the Palisades fireplace.
After the mayoral main, Robb transitioned to a job as an unpaid, unofficial advisor to the mayor, her workplace mentioned. He took on a job with Lineage on June 19.
The roles overlapped, however Robb and the mayor’s workplace insisted there was a firewall between Robb and the mayor relating to the Lineage fireplace. Robb has since mentioned he would now not advise the mayor.
Bass additionally took warmth for feedback she made that the air surrounding the burned-out warehouse wasn’t harmful to breathe, regardless of some residents reporting feeling sick from the smoke.
Bass spokesperson Ilanna Morales mentioned the mayor was merely stating what public well being officers had decided, which was that situations didn’t warrant a compulsory evacuation.
“Any assertion that the Mayor doesn’t assume smoke is harmful is distorting her remarks and taking them out of context,” mentioned Morales.
Morales additionally famous that the mayor’s response to the hearth included opening cellular well being clinics all through Boyle Heights, offering respiratory well being screenings and oxygen stage checks.
“On the request of the residents, we have now offered emergency housing relocation for greater than 1,300 folks and tons of of pets, delivered hundreds of air purifiers, related residents to cellular well being clinics, diapers, components, Metro playing cards, pet meals, grocery playing cards, and extra,” Bass mentioned in an announcement to The Instances. “We present up for our neighbors once they want us most. And that dedication doesn’t cease at Boyle Heights.”
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who has endorsed the mayor, mentioned that Bass has carried out a very good job associated to the Lineage fireplace, however that critics are piling on to a politician in a vulnerable place.
“We dwell in a day and age the place you see somebody susceptible, and everybody assaults and pounces,” Rodriguez mentioned. “Everyone seems to be indignant, and so they need to blame somebody.”
The mayor’s staff can be pushing again on assertions that it’s been a summer season of unrelenting unhealthy information, touting amongst different issues the current World Cup soccer matches at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium as a serious success that boosted L.A. companies, accommodations and Metro ridership. Additionally they famous Bass’ “Kick it within the Park” watch events all through the town, which hosted tens of hundreds of Angelenos who watched the video games without cost.
Bass supporters pointed to her second appointment as chair of L.A. Metro alongside together with her announcement that she desires to make buses and trains free, in addition to her administration’s position in serving to dealer new possession for the downtown “Graffiti Towers” that will start speedy abatement of the tagging on the buildings.
“The previous couple of weeks have been difficult; no mayor is ideal,” mentioned Nella McOsker, who runs the downtown enterprise group Central Metropolis Assn. and has endorsed the mayor. “I feel that Bass has a relentless need to reply, have interaction and proper within the midst of those crises.”
Rise in homelessness
A type of crises is the town’s power drawback with the homeless inhabitants. All through her reelection marketing campaign, Bass has repeatedly touted two straight years of decreases in homelessness from 2024 to 2025 as considered one of her most important arguments for why she needs to be given one other 4 years by Angelenos.
However 2026 ended that constructive run. Town’s unsheltered homeless inhabitants went up 7.9% this 12 months, in response to a report by the Los Angeles Homeless Companies Authority.
Bass cited cuts on the state and federal stage as partially chargeable for the rise, saying that Trump administration actions have led to greater gasoline, groceries and hire costs, which has pushed some Angelenos to the sting of homelessness.
Bass continued to web site a “historic decline” in homelessness since she took workplace — an 11% drop general since 2023.
However the uptick citywide this 12 months contrasted sharply with Raman’s district, the place homelessness really decreased by 49%.
The discrepancy gave Raman an outlet to assault the mayor whereas touting her personal report on homelessness in her district.
“This can be a ethical outrage and it’s a failure. The strategy to homelessness that Mayor Bass has led and defended introduced us right here,” Raman mentioned at a press convention the day the numbers had been launched.
The mayor has argued that her personal program, Inside Secure, was a minimum of partially chargeable for the drop in Raman’s district and likewise argued that Raman’s position as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee on the Council makes her chargeable for citywide homelessness numbers as effectively.
“The homeless rely is as a lot an indictment of Nithya Raman as it’s of Karen Bass. When you’re going responsible one you need to blame them each,” mentioned Rodriguez.
A brand new marketing campaign staff
Bass is gearing up for the autumn marketing campaign with a brand new marketing campaign staff, led by Julie Chávez Rodríguez.
Chávez Rodríguez, a granddaughter of disgraced labor chief Cesar Chavez, was marketing campaign supervisor for President Biden’s aborted 2024 re-election marketing campaign, after which took the identical position for Vice President Kamala Harris after Biden dropped out.
“She’s getting Graffiti Towers cleaned up, introduced a fare-free Metro, hosted a profitable World Cup, and extra,” mentioned Chávez Rodríguez. “These are huge wins that Angelenos see and really feel, it’s not marketing campaign rhetoric. The Mayor’s getting issues carried out throughout the Metropolis and that’s the way you win.”
Chávez Rodríguez got here on after the mayor’s earlier high marketing campaign strategist, Douglas Herman, left the marketing campaign per week after the Boyle Heights fireplace started, citing “strategic variations” for his departure.
Together with Herman, media guide Larry Grisolano and analysis director Mike Rice additionally left.
Bass’ director of communications at Metropolis Corridor, Kolby Lee, additionally resigned this summer season, the most recent in a string of Bass’ communications workers to go away her workplace over the previous 9 months.
Bass did considerably outraise Raman within the first marketing campaign finance cycle of the overall election, which her marketing campaign mentioned confirmed the mayor’s momentum and help within the metropolis. Bass raised greater than $510,000 in June, whereas Raman took in simply over $170,000.
Political guide Mike Trujillo, who’s supporting Bass, mentioned the sorts of turbulence Bass has confronted this 12 months is par for the course for a big-city mayor.
“Stuff occurs; issues are all the time transferring,” Trujillo mentioned. “Unhealthy issues are all the time taking place, and good issues are all the time taking place.”
