Karen Bass Defeats Rick Caruso To Become Los Angeles’ First Woman Mayor — Update

Tom Tapp
·8 min read
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UPDATED, 4:15 PM: Rep. Karen Bass has defeated developer Rick Caruso in the race for Los Angeles Mayor, becoming the first woman to lead the city. With 70% of the vote tallied, the latest update from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County shows Bass with an insurmountable lead of more than 46,500 votes over Caruso.

Caruso had led the race after Election Day, but was surpassed by Bass last Friday. Since then, Bass has led consistently in each of the last six updates.

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Caruso called Bass to concede this evening.

In a statement, Bass said, “The people of Los Angeles have sent a clear message: it is time for change and it is time for urgency.

“I ran for mayor to urgently confront the crises our hometown faces. Tonight, 40,000 Angelenos will sleep without a home — and 5 will not wake up. Crime is increasing and families are being priced out of their neighborhoods. This must change.   To the people of Los Angeles, my message is this:  We are going to solve homelessness. We are going to prevent and respond urgently to crime.”

Bass plans to deliver remarks on Thursday morning.

Caruso said in a statement, “Running for Mayor for the city I love has been a privilege and has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. From my family to yours, you have our deepest gratitude for your continued support.”

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PREVIOUS, Nov. 14: Rep. Karen Bass more than tripled her lead over developer Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race to nearly 30,000 votes today, according to the latest update from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

Bass led Caruso by over 9,000 votes after Saturday’s count. An additional 191,312 ballots were added to the tally Monday for a total of nearly 1.8 million ballots counted so far, with Bass now holding a 52% to 48% lead over Caruso.

Hundreds of thousands of countywide ballots still remain uncounted, however, and a winner might not be determined for days or even weeks. It was unclear how many of the uncounted votes are from voters in the city of Los Angeles.

The last four updates after Election Day have all resulted in gains for Bass, who took the lead in the vote count on Friday and has expanded it since.

PREVIOUSLY on Nov. 11: Karen Bass has surpassed Rick Caruso in the latest ballot count in the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. New totals from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office show Bass ahead by 4,384 votes – 50.38% to Caruso’s 49.62%. Going into today, Caruso led by 2,695 votes.

PREVIOUSLY on Nov. 10: Karen Bass shrunk Rick Caruso’s lead in the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles to just 2,700 votes, according to updated election returns released today by the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. That 2,700 margin comes out of the nearly 1.5 million ballots cast in the city’s election.

Bass surged from what was a 12,000-vote deficit early Wednesday morning, when the clerk’s office last
released an update. An additional 134,099 vote-by-mail ballots returned through Election Day were added to the vote count Thursday afternoon, bringing the total ballots counted to 1,452,192.

Late Wednesday, the county registrar’s office announced that there were roughly 1 million ballots still to be counted, though the office did not specify how many of those come from the city of Los Angeles.

PREVIOUSLY on November 9: Campaigns are closely watching Los Angeles County’s infamously slow vote counting this morning as developer Rick Caruso maintains a lead over Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA).

Both candidates addressed supporters early today, even though it could take days for a winner to emerge.

“Together, I know that we have the power, and the plans, to end street homelessness, stop corruption, and finally get to work building a brighter future for LA — one where every Angeleno can thrive,” Caruso said in a note posted on Twitter.

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“We won’t know the final result of the election tonight, but we do know that we made history with our movement,” Bass wrote.

In another race that drew heavy entertainment industry interest, Robert Luna was in a significant lead over incumbent Alex Villanueva, 56.78% to 43.22%.

PREVIOUSLY, 10:26 PM PT: Early results tonight in the hard-fought race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles were close, with developer Rick Caruso leading Rep. Karen Bass by less than 2,000 votes with 12% of the votes in.

Caruso held a slim lead over Bass, with 50.26% of the vote compared to 49.74% for Bass, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar- Recorder/County Clerk.

Who In Hollywood Voted For Karen Bass & Who Voted For Rick Caruso

The early results included vote-by-mail ballots cast before Election Day and vote center ballots cast before Election Day. Even a slim lead for Caruso is remarkable given he once trailed Bass by a considerable margin. A Los Angeles Times-U.C. Berkeley poll in late October indicated that the race was tightening after Bass had sizable lead earlier in the campaign. Experts cautioned the race was not expected to be called today.

Bass, a six-term member of Congress, is seeking to become the first woman and only the second Black person to lead Los Angeles. Caruso, a real estate billionaire, is looking to win a campaign that’s on track to spend over $100 million — much of it from Caruso’s own fortune and spent to propel him into contention.

Bass held a comfortable lead in the polls just a month ago, but the survey ahead of Election Day showed that Caruso had closed the gap considerably. Bass led Caruso 45% to 41%, a gap within the 4% margin of error. Furthermore, the poll found 13% of voters undecided.

A Southern California News Group poll conducted by J. Wallin Opinion Research from Oct. 15-17 found a 3-point lead for Caruso, which was also within the margin of error.

An earlier version of the UC Berkeley IGS Poll in early October showed Bass with a 15-point advantage among likely voters.

Whoever wins the election will inherit leadership of a city grappling with a scandal that has embroiled City Hall for the past month, after three council members and a top county labor official took part in a leaked conversation in October 2021 that included racist comments and attempts to manipulate redistricting.

“We’ve had a really volatile month in L.A. County, and Rick Caruso has made a late push here that clearly has made, at least in the polling, a significant difference,” said Mindy Romero, director of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy.

Caruso was criticized for financing his campaign with his personal fortune. But he said he didn’t
take money from special interest groups, he would not be swayed by lobbyists and have the city’s best interests at heart.

Bass has also criticized Caruso for switching political parties. Caruso was a Republican until 2019 and donated to anti-abortion politicians, allowing Bass to contrast herself as a “lifelong, pro-choice Democrat” in a city that leans heavily Democratic.

Both candidates have acknowledged the gravity of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles but differed on how to approach it. The latest homeless count released this month showed a 1.7% increase in the number of unhoused people in Los Angeles since 2020, bringing the total to 41,980 — some feel that count, taken on one of the coldest nights of the year, may underestimate the true growth of the problem.

Initial results from Tuesday’s voting were posted by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk shortly after 8 p.m. — but experts cautioned that people should not read too much into them, with millions of vote- by-mail ballots still to be counted. A close race might not be determined until late this week.

City News Service contributed to this report.

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