Bass Drops to 34% in LA Mayoral Market as Polls Show 16-Point Deficit
Bass has fallen to her lowest market price in three days; the Berkeley/LA Times poll shows 26% of likely voters still undecided, making her path to the top two uncertain.
Karen Bass's Prediction Market Odds Are Collapsing, and the Polls Explain Why
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is polling behind a first-term city councilmember in at least one major survey of the June 2 mayoral primary, and the prediction markets have finally started to adjust. The LMU/LAist poll, conducted from February 11 to March 16 among 370 registered voters, places Bass at just 17% support. Nithya Raman leads that survey at 32.5%, a 15.5-percentage-point gap that, if it holds through the primary, would leave the sitting mayor scrambling for a top-two runoff spot rather than defending the office she won in 2022.
Prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket now price Bass at 34%, down from 42% just three days ago. That 8-percentage-point drop is notable for a sitting incumbent, but it still implies Bass is the race's most likely winner. The most generous recent poll for her, a UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times survey of 840 likely voters from March 9–15, puts her at 25%. The market at 34% is therefore pricing in a more optimistic scenario than any public poll currently supports. Prediction markets usually lead polling data, not lag it. This correction suggests traders were slow to incorporate publicly available information that has been accumulating since at least mid-February.
Nithya Raman's Surge Is Reshaping the Los Angeles Mayoral Race
The primary driver of Bass's market decline is Councilmember Nithya Raman, who formally entered the race on March 8 at the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreation Center. Raman leads the LMU/LAist poll by a wide margin, and even in the Berkeley/LA Times survey where Bass performs best, the undecided bloc sits at 26%, larger than any single candidate's share. That undecided pool is the critical variable: if it breaks toward challengers rather than the incumbent, Bass's position deteriorates further.
Los Angeles uses a top-two primary system. If no candidate clears 50% on June 2, the top two finishers advance to a November runoff. For Bass, the immediate question is not whether she can win outright in June, because no one will in a 19-candidate field. The question is whether she can finish in the top two. The LMU/LAist numbers suggest that is not guaranteed. She sits fifth in that survey, behind Raman (32.5%), Rae Huang (16.6%), Adam Miller (13.4%), and Spencer Pratt (11.5%). Even accounting for the poll's small sample size, that ordering is alarming for an incumbent.
This is what a "runoff trap" looks like. Bass may retain enough name recognition and institutional support to place in the top two, but if she enters a one-on-one matchup against Raman having trailed her by double digits in the primary, the anti-incumbent vote consolidates against her. Raman's progressive base, combined with disaffected voters who backed other challengers, could create a coalition Bass cannot overcome in November.
The Strongest Case for Bass
The counter-argument deserves genuine consideration. The UC Berkeley/LA Times poll, which surveys likely voters rather than registered voters, shows Bass leading at 25% with Raman at just 14% and Spencer Pratt at 17%. That 11-percentage-point lead over Raman in this particular survey suggests Bass's incumbency advantage is real among people who are most likely to actually cast ballots. The LMU/LAist poll's smaller sample of 370 registered voters carries a wider margin of error and may oversample younger, more progressive respondents who favor Raman. Incumbents historically outperform their polling in lower-turnout municipal elections because their voters are older, more habitual, and better identified by campaign infrastructure. Bass also benefits from the fractured field: Rick Caruso's decision not to run removed the most formidable fundraising threat on her right flank, and candidates like Tish Hyman and Rae Huang split progressive votes that might otherwise consolidate behind Raman in the primary.
If you believe the Berkeley/LA Times methodology over LMU/LAist, a market price of 34% may be fair or even slightly low. The question is which poll is closer to the truth, and traders will not get a definitive answer until more surveys arrive in April and May.
Where the LA Mayoral Election Market Stands Right Now
Bass's implied probability tells a clear story of declining confidence. At 34%, she sits at her three-day low, with no recovery bounce. The Kalshi-Polymarket spread is tight: 35% on Kalshi versus 33% on Polymarket, a 2-percentage-point gap that suggests both platforms are receiving similar directional flow.
The core tension is straightforward. At 34%, the market still prices Bass as someone with roughly a one-in-three chance of winning outright. But the best poll for her shows 25% support with 26% undecided, and the worst shows her at 17% in fifth place. For the market to be correct at its current level, you need to believe that Bass will outperform her polling by 9 to 17 percentage points, or that the undecided bloc breaks disproportionately in her favor. Neither assumption is unreasonable for an incumbent, but both require specific conditions: high name recognition translating to votes, effective campaign spending in the final two months, and a failure by Raman to consolidate progressive support before June 2.
The market resolves on the June 2 primary date. With 63 days remaining, there is ample time for additional polling to clarify whether LMU/LAist or Berkeley/LA Times is closer to the electorate's actual composition. If a third poll confirms Bass trailing Raman by double digits among likely voters, expect the market to compress further toward 20% or below. If the next survey shows Bass leading, the current 34% could stabilize. Either way, the 8-percentage-point drop this week was not an overreaction. It was a delayed recognition that Karen Bass is not running as a safe incumbent. She is running as an underdog.