LA Mayor’s Race Tightens as Billionaire Caruso Narrows Gap

Christopher Palmeri
·5 min read
11
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- The race to be the next mayor of Los Angeles continued to tighten, with a poll released Friday showing the candidates much closer than a month ago.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Congresswoman Karen Bass is the choice of 45% of likely voters, according to the survey from the University of California at Berkeley that was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Rick Caruso, a real estate developer in his first campaign for public office, had support from 41%. About 13% remain undecided.

Bass’s lead has shrunk since a survey released last month from the same source showed a 15-point difference.

At stake in the Nov. 8 vote is the top job in America’s second-largest city, but one beset with large and growing problems. Despite their different backgrounds, the two candidates have veered toward similar platforms, seizing on what polls have showed as the electorate’s two top concerns: public safety and homelessness.

‘No Question’

“There’s no question, Bass has taken a fairly centrist position on both of these issues,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California “Caruso is calling for more aggressive action. That’s appealing to a lot of voters.”

The candidates are a study in contrasts. Bass is a 69-year-old former community activist serving her sixth term in the US House of Representatives. If she wins, she’ll be the first female mayor elected since the city was incorporated in 1850. Caruso, 63, is a billionaire developer with a focus on luxury properties, such as the $2,000-a-night Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel in Montecito, California, and the Grove, a mall in the center of LA that generates some of the highest sales per square foot in the country.

Bass, who is Black, is leading that demographic, and among Democrats in a county where they outnumber Republican registered voters three-to-one. Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat, has gained support among nonpartisan, Asian and Latino residents, according to the poll released last month. His rise has been fueled by an advertising blitz that’s flooded social media with negative articles about his opponent. He’s also sponsoring ads and lawn signs in languages such as Spanish, Korean and Tagalog.

Caruso is pumping record-breaking sums into his campaign, spending $92.3 million, borrowing most of it from himself, according to the city ethics commission. Bass has spent $8.1 million, although city matching funds and spending from independent committees adds millions of dollars more to her total.

A former president of the city’s police commission, Caruso wants to hire 1,500 more officers and restore the department’s budget after cuts. Bass wants to move 250 cops from desk jobs to patrols, hire more civilians to take their place, and build the force back to its authorized level of 9,700.

Caruso plans to declare a “state of emergency” on homelessness, building 30,000 beds in 300 days. Bass has called Caruso’s target a “con,” but says she’ll house 17,000 people in her first year, a number she bumped up by 2,000 recently. Bass said she’ll appoint a homelessness chief, and end the encampments that plague the city.

Whether Bass or Caruso can actually effectuate change in LA is an unanswerable question. The city’s 15 council members control much of the power over decision-making, any many newly elected members and candidates oppose even removing homeless tent camps from in front of schools and child care centers.

The race began to get particularly interesting the night of the primary in June, when Caruso appeared to finish first in early results and the clearly delighted candidate gave a speech in the courtyard of the Grove, surrounded by tight security and free-flowing prosecco.

As later ballots came in, Bass took the lead, however, and she’s held it for much of the polling since. Bass has been endorsed at nearly every level of the Democratic establishment, including President Joe Biden. Former President Barack Obama recorded an online video and robo call for her campaign.

Each candidate has dueling scandals involving the University of Southern California, with Bass having received free tuition after being elected to Congress. She said it was approved by the House Committee on Ethics.

Bass has chided Caruso for not releasing a report on a university physician accused of sexual misconduct. The candidate, who was chair of USC’s board, said the details of the report would only cause more grief for the women involved. The university opted not to host a debate scheduled for September.

That same month, two men broke into Bass’s home and stole two guns, surprising many residents who didn’t know she was a gun owner. October brought a local scandal, with three city council members secretly caught on tape making racist remarks. Caruso and Bass both jumped on the situation to advance their campaigns, with Bass declaring that she has experience uniting the city’s disparate groups. Caruso positioned himself as an outsider who could clean up City Hall.

“I’m still expecting a close race,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University at Los Angeles. “What they’ve really being campaigning on is their approach as much as their policies.”

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.