Friends who’ve fallen out feud during gritty, final LA mayoral debate

Voters have been good to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. For the past two decades, she has won elections to the California Assembly, to Congress and to the mayoralty she now holds. She has never lost an election.

But her grip on her current job is tenuous. 

That was evident Tuesday night during a close, sometimes gritty debate with her rival, City Councilmember Nithya Raman. Bass was measured and unflappable but also biting. Polls show her trailing in her bid for re-election, but she made it clear Tuesday she has no intention of leaving quietly.

Separated from each other by a panel of questioners, the two candidates were warned at the outset to refrain from personal attacks. Both ignored that admonishment.

In the final televised debate of a close campaign, Bass was particularly assertive, several times accusing Raman of lying and misrepresenting the mayor’s record, as well as suggesting Raman would plunge the Los Angeles Police Department into “disarray” on the eve of the Olympic games and maintaining that the mayor’s office was forced to handle constituent services in Raman’s district when residents became frustrated with the council member and her staff. 

Raman shook her head in annoyance as the mayor’s accusations piled up.

Portraying Raman as naïve and slippery, Bass concluded: “Now is not the time to turn the city over to Nithya Raman.”

Those are tough words, especially for an official the mayor once favored. Raman and Bass have supported each other in prior campaigns, and Raman backed Bass in this one before jumping in herself. 

That has left Bass feeling betrayed, and some of that bitterness Raman reflected back during the debate. Raman charged the mayor with paying “lip service” to reducing red tape that bottles up housing construction and with overseeing a listless, lost administration. The Bass mayoral record, Raman insisted, was “four years of decline, of mismanagement, of excuses.”

There are no enemies in politics quite like friends who have fallen out, and that’s what this race has become. 

Substantively, their debate covered familiar ground: Raman accused the mayor of being “MIA” during and after the fire that destroyed thousands of homes in the Pacific Palisades and more broadly MIA as a manager of city services. Under Bass, the councilwoman argued, city departments have become dysfunctional, paralyzed when faced with complaints and unable to make changes that might bring down the cost of new housing.

In fact, although the two agree on the crying need for new housing construction, they managed to fight over that, too, with Bass touting the construction of 10,000 new affordable housing units during her tenure and Raman pointing out that overall apartment construction in the city is falling. Both are right.

As the two make the final turn toward Election Day, their similarities are as striking as their differences. 

Both champion affordability. Raman focuses on housing, by far the biggest expense for most L.A. residents, and Bass agrees, while also suggesting that the city should expand childcare services to provide some relief there. 

Both also support tax credits and services to the film industry as part of their effort to keep jobs in Los Angeles. But they differ over who cares more about that issue or who has done more about it so far.

And both compete for the title of being the leader who most dislikes President Donald Trump. 

Bass highlights her visible role in standing against the ICE raids last summer. Raman argues the city needs to be even more forceful in refusing cooperation with federal authorities bent on turning the city into a showcase for the militarized rousting of undocumented migrants or anyone who looks like them. 

Trump and ICE are among the most hated figures and institutions in Los Angeles, so it’s hardly a surprise the top contenders for mayor would find common ground there.

In the debate, however, were glimmers of ways these candidates are different, substantively and temperamentally. 

Bass places greater confidence in police and in the current leadership of the LAPD. Raman starts from a place of greater skepticism about the department and Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who was appointed in 2024 and has a five-year term.

But Raman seems torn by the issue. During the debate, she said she would seek to remove McDonnell, but she shuffled over the questions of how and when she would do that. 

McDonnell, Raman said, had “lost the trust” of the city’s immigrant community by defending ICE against protesters and, she maintained, by sharing data with the federal government. 

Yet, when pressed on what action she would take, Raman — as she has before — equivocated, saying the chief’s removal required the agreement of the Police Commission and the involvement of City Council. 

That’s sort of true, but mostly not. The mayor appoints the Police Commission, so the mayor has no real impediment to firing a chief. And yes, an ousted chief could appeal to the council for reinstatement, but that’s never happened. It’s also hard to imagine a chief being fired, then winning reinstatement and going back to work for the mayor who fired him.

When NBC’s Conan Nolan pushed harder, asking whether Raman would get rid of McDonnell before the 2028 Olympics, she retreated further. “It will depend on these other factors.”

Bass was more sure-footed while talking about public safety, but she has her own struggles — starting with any proposal she now brings to the table. Improved childcare in city parks? Better data and transparency on police shootings? Expanded use of cameras to monitor traffic violations? 

All have merit, but why is a mayor who’s been in office for nearly four years suddenly pulling out new ideas for the future? 

It’s an exposed flank for an incumbent who both wants credit for progress and at the same time resists being accused of letting the city down. And it feeds Raman’s argument that Bass looks for excuses and only produces policies in response to the challenge she’s facing to win re-election.

Ballots are in the hands of voters, and polling in the race is frustratingly ambiguous. 

All the credible surveys suggest many voters are tired of Bass.But the mayor does better among older and most established residents, who happen to be the most likely to vote. She also has the support of most unions, and they are famous for turning out their members.

Bass’s challenge is unlike any she’s faced before. She needs to stage a comeback, to persuade voters that Raman is too extreme, too untested, “not ready for prime time,” as the mayor offered on Tuesday. 

But that’s a hard sell against the reality of Raman, who comes off as educated and careful, more nerdy than dangerous. Her eyes light up when she talks about data.

This week’s debate did not seal the deal for either candidate, but it offered a glimpse of what lies ahead: Tough disagreements between former friends who have become wary rivals, a choice of personalities and ideas, with the future of the city very much at stake.