Mike, Godfrey, and guest co-host Jasmyne Cannick discuss the promise and perils of the LA mayoral runoff between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Plus, the fake controversy over California’s ballot counting process, and LA’s City Council is poised to ditch years of effort to reform the city’s charter.
How bad will the mayoral runoff be? The LA Times reports on a likely “knife fight” between now and November 3. Jasmyne writes that the “Democratic group chat is about to get messy”
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Mike, Godfrey, and guest co-host Jasmyne Cannick discuss the promise and perils of the LA mayoral runoff between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Plus, the fake controversy over California’s ballot counting process, and LA’s City Council is poised to ditch years of effort to reform the city’s charter.
How bad will the mayoral runoff be? The LA Times reports on a likely “knife fight” between now and November 3. Jasmyne writes that the “Democratic group chat is about to get messy”
Bass kicked off her general election campaign with a broadside at Raman, indicating she intends to hit Raman on police hiring and homeless encampments.
Raman, meanwhile, held a press conference, outlining her vision and appealing to the frustrations of supporters of Spencer Pratt
Pratt, who promised to leave LA if he lost the mayor’s race, has apparently changed his mind. Friday afternoon he dropped a 3-minute video attacking Bass and Raman in his typical over-the-top fashion, and claiming he has a private recording of one of them making remarks that will force them to resign in disgrace
Mike, on his most recent episode of What’s Next, Los Angeles, talked about the way the candidates are framing the race, and what that could mean for their governing coalitions and their agenda in office
The data analysts have been crunching numbers and creating all sorts of reports on how subsections of the electorate broke in the June primary. Raman carried renters, according to Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc. Bass dominated in Latino neighborhoods, according to the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times published an updated map of the city, showing which candidates prevailed in which neighborhoods
If you want to go deep on the data, Mitchell has launched a fascinating experimental website that combines LA County 2026 primary election results with voter-file data to provide detailed analysis of nearly every race, including precinct maps, demographic correlations, ecological inference modeling, and candidate-to-candidate voting pattern comparisons. Mitchell also offers a quick look at which mayoral and gubernatorial candidates came in first and second in each LA City Council district
Nationally, the pace of the vote count in California has spawned a bevy of conspiracies, voiced by Donald Trump and other administration figures — although disputed by GOP gubernatorial finalist Steve Hilton. The Atlantic has a good deep dive on the substance of the issue
The conservative attacks have spawned sadly predictable hand-wringing in places like the New York Times editorial board. Yousef Baig, the CalMatters opinion editor, responded to the editorial on Bluesky: “Red states are aggressively disenfranchising Black and brown voters for the third consecutive century, but sure let’s call for federal reforms because California is too slow”
This is the week the LA City Council must decide which charter reform proposals to put before the voters in November. At the moment, the body seems poised to defer most items, saying recommendations from the Charter Reform Commission need more study. Liz Chou in her daily Squawk Box newsletter, gets into it here and here
Happy LGBTQ+ Pride! The two documentaries Mike mentions in this week’s show are The Life & Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003)
LA Forward is hosting an election debrief on Zoom 7 p.m. Tuesday, with special guests Marissa Roy and Estuardo Mazariegos. RSVP here
If you plan on watching or celebrating the World Cup events in Los Angeles, the best resource available is Alissa’s guide to the World Cup, who also wrote about how this is LA’s chance to live out in public
This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges
The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward
Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at Substack, or @mikebonin on IG, and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky
Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram
Jasmyne Cannick is a political consultant and journalist. You can find her on on Substack at or Instagram at @hellojasmyne
