Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass faces a council member. Mayors like her mostly lost.
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass faces city council member Nithya Raman on 3 November. Raman's team says a Bass advert claims too much.
What happened
Nithya Raman’s campaign says Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass takes credit in a television advert for film tax credits that the state passed.
Nithya Raman’s campaign says a television advert by Karen Bass claims too much. Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, says in the advert that she “expanded film and TV tax credits“. On Raman’s spokesperson Liz Garcia said the state government passed that law, and that the city lost 40,000 entertainment jobs “on her watch“.
Bass’s team answers that she created the state’s first film tax credit in 2009, when she was speaker of the California State Assembly. The author of the law that expanded the credit supports Bass. Film jobs are one of the main topics of the race. The Writers Guild of America West backs Raman, and four unions, among them the Hollywood Teamsters, back Bass.
Bass came first in the first round on . Raman, a city council member since 2020, beat Spencer Pratt for second place by about 3.5 points. The two meet in the city’s General Municipal Election on . Several polls show Bass behind Raman.
California state law requires the RR/CC to complete and certify results within 30 days.
Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, Certifying Results
Not all votes are counted on election night. Postal ballots that arrive on election day and other late ballots are counted in the 30 days after the vote. Then the county election office certifies the final result.
Sources: variety.com
The Pattern
We looked for cases where a US city mayor in a first term faced a sitting member of the same city council in a final round between the top two. We found six such races from 1999 to 2019, in five cities. Two were in San Antonio, and the man who won there in 2017 was the mayor who kept the job in 2019.
Show the other 4 cases
The Read
The mayor lost in Los Angeles and Cleveland in 2005, Omaha in 2013 and San Antonio in 2017. In Los Angeles, Jim Hahn lost 41% to 59% after the voters who elected him four years before split away. Several polls now show Bass behind Raman, and her approval ratings are low.
There are reasons for doubt. There have been only six such races, and two of them were in San Antonio. Three times the mayor led the first round, and two of those mayors kept the job. In Cleveland in 2005 it is not known who led the first round. Bass led the first round this year, as Willie Brown did in San Francisco in 1999 and Ron Nirenberg did in San Antonio in 2019.
Disclaimer
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