With only hours left in Election Day and the L.A. mayoral race, incumbent Karen Bass and candidate Nithya Raman have been making last-minute campaign efforts in an attempt to sway voters.
Bass made several public appearances Monday as she tried to secure her second term. Monday morning, Bass joined Councilmember Monica Rodriguez in Sylmar to sign an ordinance for a new fire station for the neighborhood and joined Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra at Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown.
Later, she joined the former Rep. Tony Cárdenas in Pacoima for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for housing for foster youth and attended a vigil with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor honored civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, according to KTLA.
In her final day campaigning, she spoke about the homelessness crisis and making L.A. more affordable.
“My closing message to voters is that this election is a real choice,” Bass said. “I know that we can get rid of all the major encampments off our streets, I know that our city can be safer. We need to have more police officers and, most importantly, I know that our city can be affordable.”
Raman, who’s been a longtime ally of Bass, shook up the mayoral election when she announced that she was running for mayor’s office back in February and also visited several parts of the city, including the UCLA campus to meet with supporters.
“The issues that I’m speaking to in this campaign are issues that matter for young people,” Raman said on an outdoor stage. “Young people who are moving to the city who want to build their life here, who want to be able to afford to build their dreams here, and are unable to do it because we have a mayoral administration in a city hall that has ignored their needs for far too long.”
Both candidates struck similar notes this weekend. On Sunday, Raman rallied with campaign volunteers in San Fernando Valley.
“Going across this entire city, there is so much frustration about the decline in services across L.A.,” Raman said at an event Sunday in Canoga Park. “Whether it’s on homelessness where we’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars and not gotten the results that Angelenos deserve. Whether it’s on essential services like street lights and potholes and sidewalks, L.A.’s frustrated, and I will bring change.”
Raman handed out candy to trick-or-treaters and stopped in Boyle Heights, which is still dealing with the after-effects of the summer’s Lineage warehouse fire.
Meanwhile, Bass cast her ballot in a polling center in Koreatown with her adult children and grandchildren on Sunday.
“In the next four years, Los Angeles [is] becoming much more affordable, because we will have finished the 47,000 units that are in the pipeline,” Bass said Sunday.
Bass also brought up how Raman’s plan to replace the current police chief ahead of the Olympics, which L.A. will host in 2028, would disrupt the LAPD ahead of the major sporting event.
“I think four years under Nithya Raman would present a tremendous amount of chaos,” Bass said. “It would be chaos from day one.”
Raman hasn’t said whether she plans to replace the police chief before or after the Olympics.
During Bass’s tenure, she nominated current Police Chief Jim McDonnell. Raman, who’s on the city council, approved of Bass’s nominations at the time. Now, if Raman were to win the mayoral election, she’s said she would replace the chief, criticizing the LAPD’s response to federal immigration enforcement in the city.
In the latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which is co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Raman and Bass were basically tied, leaving 19% of voters undecided going into Tuesday’s election.
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