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Decision Desk HQ projected on Wednesday evening, November 4, 2026, that Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has won the city's mayoral race, ousting incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
In the latest Los Angeles County tally, Raman led with 405,193 votes, or 51.7 percent, to Bass's 379,069 votes, or 48.3 percent — a margin of 26,124 votes out of 784,262 votes counted. The Associated Press had not called the race, and official certification was not expected until later in November, with California accepting ballots postmarked by Election Day for up to seven days.
The November 3 runoff followed a June 2 nonpartisan primary in which Bass finished first with 34.3 percent and Raman second with 29.0 percent, ahead of television personality Spencer Pratt, who was eliminated.
Raman, 45, has represented the council's 4th District since December 2020. She is a Harvard- and MIT-trained urban planner who founded a Los Angeles homelessness nonprofit and previously served as executive director of Time's Up. She is a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and she chaired the City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee from 2023 until council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson split the committee and removed her as chair effective September 1.
Homelessness was central to the contest. The city invests more than $1 billion a year in its homelessness response, and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority's July count put the number of people without stable shelter in the city at 45,194, up 3.4 percent after two consecutive yearly declines, with the unsheltered population up 7.9 percent. Raman has argued that Bass's signature Inside Safe encampment program, at an average cost of about $82,000 a year per person, is too expensive and unsustainable, and has pushed time-limited rental vouchers, estimated at about $30,000 a year, as a cheaper alternative. Critics, including commentator Benny Johnson, have pointed to her record as committee chair and claimed she voted more than 60 times against no-camping zones for homeless encampments.
Policing was also a campaign flashpoint. In 2020 Raman embraced the "defund the police" movement and proposed transforming the LAPD into a much smaller force; in January 2026 she voted against adding 170 officers, though she later told NBC4 that sworn staffing should not shrink further and said in September that her views on defunding had changed. She pledged during the campaign to replace LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, saying he had not met the moment in his response to the June 2025 immigration raids, but later said replacing the chief was not part of her first 100-day agenda, noting his term runs through 2030 and that any change would involve the Board of Police Commissioners and the City Council.
If the projection holds, Raman would become Los Angeles's first Asian American mayor, and she would take office as the city prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. Her projected victory would also put a progressive leadership group at City Hall alongside City Controller Kenneth Mejia and City Attorney Marissa Roy.