Bass Favored at 59% to Win Los Angeles Mayor's Race After Poll Tightens

Karen Bass Is Polling at 26% — And That's Actually Good News for Her Campaign

Four days before the June 2 primary, a UC Berkeley-L.A. Times poll of 1,351 likely voters shows Karen Bass leading the Los Angeles mayoral race at 26%. City Councilmember Nithya Raman sits one point behind at 25%. Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV personality running as a registered Republican, pulls 22%. No other candidate cracks double digits.

That 26% number looks terrible in isolation. It is not. Los Angeles uses a primary system that advances the top two candidates to a November runoff unless someone clears 50%+1 on June 2. With three candidates clustered in the twenties and more than a quarter of the electorate split among minor candidates or undecided, nobody is remotely close to that threshold. The question facing Bass is not whether she will survive the primary. She almost certainly will. The question is whether she can win a five-month general election campaign against an opponent who will have time, money, and momentum to consolidate the anti-Bass vote.

Before deciding whether 26% is a crisis or just arithmetic: the prediction market has already rendered its verdict, and it just got 10 percentage points more pessimistic.

Karen Bass Mayoral Race Odds Drop 10 Points — What the Market Is Actually Pricing In

Bass's implied probability of winning the Los Angeles mayoral election fell from 69% to 59% over three days on both Kalshi and Polymarket. Kalshi currently prices her at 60%; Polymarket at 58%. The spread between platforms is narrow, suggesting genuine consensus rather than thin-market noise.

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This market resolves not on June 2 but on the final outcome, meaning it prices the full path to victory, including a November runoff. That distinction matters enormously. At 69%, the market was behaving as though Bass had a comfortable incumbency advantage that would carry her through any runoff scenario. At 59%, the market is saying the runoff itself is a coin-flip-plus, not a formality.

The catalyst is clear: the Berkeley-L.A. Times poll dropped May 28 and showed Bass's lead over Raman had compressed from five points in the May 10 Emerson College survey (Bass 30%, Raman 20%) to a single point. That compression tells bettors two things. First, Bass has no realistic path to avoiding a runoff. Second, Raman is consolidating progressive support at a rate that makes November genuinely competitive. A runoff extends the race by five months, introduces new fundraising dynamics, and gives opponents sustained time to attack Bass on the issue that defines this cycle: her response to the 2025 Palisades fire.

The market dropping 10 percentage points suggests bettors see the runoff path as materially riskier than a straightforward win. To understand why, you need to understand what the polling is actually showing about the field around Bass.

Who Is Closing the Gap on Bass in the Los Angeles Mayor's Race?

With Bass at 26%, the remaining 74% of the electorate is distributed across candidates who, while individually weaker, collectively represent a large reservoir of anti-incumbent sentiment. The identity of the runoff opponent matters enormously for the November calculus.

Nithya Raman is the most dangerous challenger. The District 4 councilmember has risen from 20% in the Emerson poll to 25% in the Berkeley-L.A. Times survey, a five-point gain in under three weeks. She represents the progressive wing of Los Angeles Democratic politics and would enter a November runoff as the clear consolidation point for voters dissatisfied with Bass's wildfire response, housing record, and perceived closeness to the city's political establishment. Raman has $959,634 in cash on hand as of mid-April, nearly matching Bass's $2.26 million war chest in efficiency if not in scale.

Spencer Pratt polls at 22% and commands outsize media attention. His campaign has been documented in a deal with Boardwalk Pictures for a reality television series, and his fundraising ($538,478 raised, $314,598 on hand) trails the field. His candidacy draws Republican and protest-vote support that might not transfer cleanly to Raman in a runoff, but his presence in the primary likely prevents Bass from consolidating moderate voters before June 2. If Pratt finishes third, his voters become the swing bloc in November.

Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller has self-funded $2.5 million into his campaign but polls well below the top three. His path to the runoff is narrow, and he functions primarily as a spoiler drawing centrist dollars away from Bass.

The Case Against Bass at 59%: Why the Market May Still Be Too High

The strongest argument against Bass is that incumbency in this race is a liability, not an asset. The Palisades fire remains politically raw. The L.A. Times reported Bass herself acknowledges this is the toughest reelection fight of her career. In a runoff, Raman would have five months to consolidate every voter who cast a ballot for Pratt, Miller, or any other non-Bass candidate on June 2. If even half of Pratt's 22% migrates to Raman, the math becomes brutal for Bass.

Consider the fundraising picture. Raman's cash-on-hand-to-vote-share ratio is the best in the field. Bass has more money, but she also has higher negatives: the March L.A. Times survey already showed many voters view her unfavorably. Negative impressions are harder to reverse than positive ones are to build, and a five-month runoff gives Raman the runway to do exactly that.

There is also the Pratt wildcard. His campaign is increasingly a media spectacle, with claims that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx privately encouraged his run, though he provided no evidence. If Pratt overperforms on June 2 and finishes second instead of Raman, Bass's November odds actually improve, because Pratt's ceiling in a deep-blue city is lower than Raman's. But the polling trend is moving against that scenario.

What Happens Next: Resolution, Scenarios, and the Price of a Runoff

The June 2 primary resolves whether Bass faces a November fight and against whom. The prediction market's 59% implied probability essentially says: Bass is a slight favorite to win the whole thing, but the runoff introduces enough uncertainty to make it a 3-in-5 proposition rather than a 7-in-10 one.

Three scenarios matter for traders. First, Bass could win outright on June 2 by surging past 50%, which the polling makes nearly impossible. Second, Bass could enter a runoff against Raman, the scenario the market most fears and the one the polling most supports. Third, Bass could face Pratt in November, a matchup where her incumbency advantage would be far stronger given Los Angeles's Democratic registration edge. The price should move sharply based on which scenario materializes.

At 59%, the market is pricing a genuine race but still giving Bass the benefit of incumbency, name recognition, and a $2.26 million war chest. That may be right. But if Raman consolidates the anti-Bass vote in a November runoff with five months of runway, 59% will look generous in retrospect. The next four days will determine whether Bass can hold her lead in the primary field. The next five months will determine whether that lead ever mattered.