The Los Angeles Mayoral Race I Always Wanted to Vote In

“It has to start somewhere

It has to start sometime

What better place than here?

What better time than now?”

- Rage Against the Machine, “Guerrilla Radio”

When I first ran for a seat on the Los Angeles school board in 2015, I was warned that the first reported results on election night would likely look worse than the final tally. At that time, older voters, who tend to be more conservative than the rest of the electorate, disproportionately used mail‑in ballots. These voters tended to return their ballots early, and they would be included in the first results released by the city clerk. For a progressive candidate like myself, this meant my early numbers would appear artificially low.

The COVID pandemic and the havoc it wreaked on the election system changed these calculations. While mailing in ballots seemed like a logical way to capture the choices of voters at a time when gathering in crowds jeopardized public health, Donald Trump treated it as an opportunity to open another front in the culture wars. Facing declining approval numbers, he used the expanding use of mail-in ballots to sow doubt about any results that did not go his way.

The result of Trump's false claims that mail-in voting promotes fraud has produced a massive shift in California’s voting patterns. Older, conservative voters are no longer the primary users of mail-in ballots. They have been replaced in larger numbers by progressive voters who have embraced the convenience of not having to go to the polls in person.

Unlike older voters, the new cohort of absentee voters tends to return their ballots later, often waiting until the last minute. California law mandates that mail‑in ballots be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and are received within a week.

Given the new reality, it should not have been a surprise that MAGA Republican Spencer Pratt's best showing in the primary results came on election night. With conservative voters now more likely to cast their ballots in person, their votes were among the first to be reported, placing Pratt in second place. As mail-in ballots arrived over the next few days, his lead over Nithya Raman slowly evaporated. After a surge of progressive votes placed in the mail at the last minute was received, he fell to third and was eliminated.

The general election battle between incumbent Karen Bass and city councilperson Nithya Raman disrupts the status quo in Los Angeles mayoral elections. Usually, the majority of Democrats coalesce around one candidate, ensuring that person’s passage to the general election. With the rest of the Democrats fragmented, the leading Republican candidate would rise to second place and move on to the general election. This pattern left the voters with a choice between a party‑backed corporate Democrat and a Republican.

In my many years as a voter in Los Angeles, I held my nose and voted for the moderate, wishing I had a more progressive choice. In the first mayoral election since I relocated to Washington, progressive voters may feel less trepidation. Between Pratt's perceived lack of competence and Bass' missteps during her first term, a lane has opened for a more progressive candidate.

I am a little jealous.

Given Los Angeles' overwhelming Democratic majority, the party’s nominee was usually the favorite in the general election. This left a race where the Democratic candidate’s main objective was to avoid missteps and minimize direct engagement with their opponent. Voters lost out as they were deprived of any real policy debate.

Having two Democrats in the general election creates more space for a real discussion about the best path forward for the country’s second‑most‑populous city. Removing the partisan element means the candidates’ positions can be evaluated on their substance, rather than on the letter that appears after their name.

With homelessness seemingly an entrenched problem and the city’s large immigrant population under attack by the Trump administration, the question now is whether Los Angelenos will follow the lead of New York and Seattle by electing Nithya Raman, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-LA). Perhaps they will decide that this is too much of a risk and cast a vote to maintain the status quo with Karen Bass.

And what about Pratt’s voters? They could see Raman as the best bet to shake up the system, decide that socialism in any form is too alarming, and vote for Bass, or simply stay home.

We will know the answers after Election Day on November 3, 2026.

Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.