Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was driving comparatively excessive two months in the past, weathering pitched challenges from Spencer Pratt on the correct and Nithya Raman on the left to emerge as the highest vote-getter within the metropolis’s June 2 mayoral major.
“Tomorrow begins the second half of this journey,” an ebullient Bass advised supporters on the Line Resort in Koreatown on election evening.
There’s been rather a lot much less to cheer about recently.
Bass’ summer time has been beset by a string of unfavourable information. Workers members on each her marketing campaign and administration groups have left. She was away from 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 exhibiting 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 major,” stated 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 stated.
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 time of dangerous information will pressure Bass to reset her marketing campaign narrative — together with shoring up her assist 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 assist she was getting from the jap aspect of town, which she wanted to construct in direction of November. That’s going to be an actual problem for her now,” stated Sara Sadhwani, a professor of politics at Pomona Faculty.
Bass was in Chicago on the dedication of the Barack Obama Presidential Heart when the hearth broke out and returned to Los Angeles the subsequent 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 danger have been forecast as she departed for Africa.
“It reinforces the narrative of the Palisades, her being out of city,” stated 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 companies 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 venture to strict environmental evaluation.
“They shouldn’t even take into consideration rebuilding till they’ve cleaned up the mess they’ve created,” Bass advised reporters.
The tough line Bass is taking in opposition to Lineage, nonetheless, comes after disclosures that one among her former prime advisors, Yusef Robb, had taken on a task doing disaster communications for extremely scrutinized firm.
Robb spent the primary half of the yr working for Bass as an unpaid spokesperson, delivering statements for the mayor on among the most controversial points she confronted, together with allegations that she watered down an after-action report on the Palisades fireplace.
After the mayoral major, Robb transitioned to a task as an unpaid, unofficial advisor to the mayor, her workplace stated. He took on a task 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 concerning the Lineage fireplace. Robb has since stated he would 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 stated the mayor was merely stating what public well being officers had decided, which was that circumstances didn’t warrant a compulsory evacuation.
“Any assertion that the Mayor doesn’t suppose smoke is harmful is distorting her remarks and taking them out of context,” stated 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 degree checks.
“On the request of the residents, we now have offered emergency housing relocation for greater than 1,300 individuals and a whole lot of pets, delivered hundreds of air purifiers, linked residents to cellular well being clinics, diapers, method, Metro playing cards, pet meals, grocery playing cards, and extra,” Bass stated in a press release to The Instances. “We present up for our neighbors after they want us most. And that dedication doesn’t cease at Boyle Heights.”
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who has endorsed the mayor, stated that Bass has completed job associated to the Lineage fireplace, however that critics are piling on to a politician in a prone place.
“We dwell in a day and age the place you see somebody susceptible, and everybody assaults and pounces,” Rodriguez stated. “Everyone seems to be offended, and so they wish to blame somebody.”
The mayor’s crew can be pushing again on assertions that it’s been a summer time of unrelenting dangerous information, touting amongst different issues the latest World Cup soccer matches at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium as a significant success that boosted L.A. companies, motels and Metro ridership. In addition they famous Bass’ “Kick it within the Park” watch events all through town, which hosted tens of hundreds of Angelenos who watched the video games free of charge.
Bass supporters pointed to her second appointment as chair of L.A. Metro alongside together with her announcement that she needs 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 might start quick abatement of the tagging on the buildings.
“The previous few weeks have been difficult; no mayor is ideal,” stated Nella McOsker, who runs the downtown enterprise group Central Metropolis Assn. and has endorsed the mayor. “I feel that Bass has a relentless want to reply, interact and proper within the midst of those crises.”
Rise in homelessness
A kind of crises is town’s power downside 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 one among her principal arguments for why she ought to be given one other 4 years by Angelenos.
However 2026 ended that optimistic run. Town’s unsheltered homeless inhabitants went up 7.9% this yr, in response to a report by the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority.
Bass cited cuts on the state and federal degree as partially answerable for the rise, saying that Trump administration actions have led to increased fuel, groceries and lease 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 yr 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 document on homelessness in her district.
“It is a ethical outrage and it’s a failure. The strategy to homelessness that Mayor Bass has led and defended introduced us right here,” Raman stated at a press convention the day the numbers have been launched.
The mayor has argued that her personal program, Inside Protected, was not less than partially answerable 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 answerable for citywide homelessness numbers as effectively.
“The homeless depend is as a lot an indictment of Nithya Raman as it’s of Karen Bass. In the event you’re going responsible one it’s important to blame them each,” stated Rodriguez.
A brand new marketing campaign crew
Bass is gearing up for the autumn marketing campaign with a brand new marketing campaign crew, 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,” stated Chávez Rodríguez. “These are massive wins that Angelenos see and really feel, it’s not marketing campaign rhetoric. The Mayor’s getting issues completed throughout the Metropolis and that’s the way you win.”
Chávez Rodríguez got here on after the mayor’s earlier prime marketing campaign strategist, Douglas Herman, left the marketing campaign every week after the Boyle Heights fireplace started, citing “strategic variations” for his departure.
Together with Herman, media marketing consultant Larry Grisolano and analysis director Mike Rice additionally left.
Bass’ director of communications at Metropolis Corridor, Kolby Lee, additionally resigned this summer time, the most recent in a string of Bass’ communications employees to depart her workplace over the previous 9 months.
Bass did considerably outraise Raman within the first marketing campaign finance cycle of the final election, which her marketing campaign stated confirmed the mayor’s momentum and assist within the metropolis. Bass raised greater than $510,000 in June, whereas Raman took in simply over $170,000.
Political marketing consultant Mike Trujillo, who’s supporting Bass, stated the sorts of turbulence Bass has confronted this yr is par for the course for a big-city mayor.
“Stuff occurs; issues are at all times shifting,” Trujillo stated. “Dangerous issues are at all times occurring, and good issues are at all times occurring.”
