Karen Bass is polling really poorly. Like former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
A new UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times poll purports to establish that both Kamala Harris and Karen Bass are widely known in California and that while Harris is fairly popular with 50% approval, Karen Bass is increasingly unpopular statewide and in Los Angeles. The poll is reported in today’s newspaper but further details won’t be released by UC Berkeley till later today. If you are a politically astute observer of California politics, you might say “what else is new?” But I have read enough of the summary on the Bass numbers to offer a meaningful comment. And I don’t think the Time’s comparison of Harris and Bass is the most meaningful one. Rather, I think the most apt comparison to Bass is former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Bass is in awful shape in Los Angeles and there are not enough favorable black voters in the City to re-elect her. If she files to run again, I suspect her campaign will quickly disintegrate, along the lines of Lori Elaine Lightfoot, who was Mayor of Chicago from 2019 to 2023, and a prominent Democrat, who served only one term. Lightfoot, the first black female Mayor of Chicago, could not stem crime or homelessness in Chicago. Analysts wrote at the time that Lightfoot lost her re-election because of a spike in violent crime, arguments with the teachers union, and the electorate’s focus on public safety. Violence in the city spiked in 2020 and 2021. Higher theft, car-jacking, robberies and burglaries convinced voters they needed to make a change.
So, Lightfoot placed third in her bid for a second term, gaining just 16.8% of the vote in a crowded field. This marked the first time an incumbent Chicago mayor lost a re-election bid since 1983.
A similar scenario is developing in Los Angeles, as we read the “tea leaves” of the sometimes wildly inaccurate, but in this case devastating, new Los Angeles Times poll on Bass.
Of course, we already knew that Bass’ popularity plunged significantly after the Southern California wildfires. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/politics-expert-explains-mayor-karen-bass-negative-polling-after-the-fires/. But in the months since the widespread devastation in Pacific Palisades, an important community in L.A., Bass’ response and citywide voters’ assessment of her job performance has only gotten worse. https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2025-05-12/skelton-monday-politics-newsletter-poll-harris-bass.
Here is what we really learn from the L.A. Times poll: Bass has suffered a stunning reversal in public opinion since her election as Mayor. In October of 2022, 50% of voters viewed her favorably and 35% unfavorably. The polling at that time accurately supported her 10 point victory in November of 2022 over developer Rick Caruso. But today, the numbers have entirely flipped on Bass, with 50% of voters thinking of her negatively and only 32% favorably. While a majority of black voters do not disfavor Bass, almost every other voter cohort in Los Angeles does disfavor her by a majority. And while a significant voting community, black voters only make up about 11% of registered voters in L.A. In a theoretical re-match with Caruso, Bass would be literally creamed, IF she made it through the primary election. Like Chicago, Los Angeles has a “jungle primary” where all the candidates run on the same ballot and only the top two move on to a run-off. With such high unfavorable ratings by Los Angeles voters as reported today, I do not think Bass could even make it to the run-off election, as occurred in Chicago when Lightfoot was shut out of the general election, and if Caruso does run again, who retains a suitable level of voter identification, he probably would not end up running against Bass in the general election.
Bass’ mishandling of the wildfire response - her overseas trip to Ghana, her frozen response to initial questions about the tragic fires as she returned, her botched efforts to name a redevelopment leader, her firing of the Fire Chief and apparent attempts to pass blame to other agencies and political leaders, amount to a failure of leadership. https://www.city-journal.org/article/la-mayor-karen-bass-budget-wildfires. In my opinion, Lightfoot’s failures took a tragic toll on the people of Chicago, but Bass’ failures are even more evident to residents every day, not just on the street corners where crime and homelessness persist, but also where the sad evidence of burned-out empty lots and hundreds of homes rendered down to rubble remain as a stark reminder of her failures.