Downtown Los Angeles residents will get a rare shot at pressing both mayoral candidates with their own questions this Thursday night, when Karen Bass and Nithya Raman appear separately at Clifton's on Broadway. Each candidate gets 40 minutes to answer questions pulled directly from the neighborhood, with the event starting at 6 p.m. and space limited to those who RSVP by Thursday at noon.
The Downtown Los Angeles Residents Association is organizing the forum, which it describes as a nonpartisan civic engagement event aimed at helping voters make informed decisions at the polls, according to LAist. Organizers say the questions are directly sourced from downtown residents about the future of their neighborhood, and the event is designed to push whoever wins toward a resident-centered vision for a vibrant, thriving downtown.
Bass is the incumbent mayor seeking a second four-year term leading the nation's second-largest city, while Raman, a Los Angeles City Councilmember, is trying to unseat her. The two will appear at Clifton's, located at 648 S. Broadway, two days after facing off in a one-hour, commercial-free televised debate hosted by NBC4 and Telemundo 52 that ran from 7 to 8 p.m. and covered public safety, homelessness, housing and economic development, per NBC Los Angeles.
Debate Stage Turns Combative Over Record and Readiness
That televised matchup got heated. Bass argued Raman was not ready for prime time and lacked the experience and relationships needed to lead the city and keep residents safe, while Raman charged that Bass had mismanaged Los Angeles and overspent on homelessness programs and the police, according to The New York Times. Bass countered that crime rates were near record lows and homelessness had declined significantly on her watch.
Raman has also hammered Bass on economic conditions downtown, saying homelessness is rising despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent, storefronts are closing, and tax money is being wasted, as reported by ABC7. Bass has defended her signature Inside Safe homelessness program, which Raman has repeatedly called too expensive.
Looming over the race is Bass's response to the January 2025 wildfires, which killed 12 people and destroyed or contaminated thousands of houses, per the Times. After residents learned Bass was out of the country when the Palisades fire began, her approval rating plummeted and never fully rebounded, the paper reports.
Polls Show Raman Ahead, but a Third of Voters Still Undecided
A Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll found Raman leading Bass by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 39% to 28%, with 33% still undecided, according to the Los Angeles Times. That same survey found 63% of voters who had backed Spencer Pratt in the June primary still had not decided whom to support in the runoff.
Other recent polling has bounced around: an internal Raman campaign poll from early September had her up 44% to 39%, a Streets for All survey put her ahead 38% to 32%, while an early-August poll commissioned by a Bass-aligned independent expenditure group had the mayor leading 41% to 35%, per the same Times account. Among Latino voters specifically, the paper notes Raman led Bass 45% to 21% in late September, with a stark generational split — Raman up 60% to 9% among Latino voters 18 to 49, but Bass ahead 36% to 26% among those 50 and older.
Latinos are expected to make up about 30% of the electorate, the Times reports, and both campaigns have poured money into reaching them. The independent expenditure group Estamos con Nithya has raised $6 million, while Unidos con Karen Bass is also involved in the race.
In the June 2 primary that set up the runoff, Bass carried 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods compared with just seven for Raman, who finished second to advance to November, according to the Times and NBC Los Angeles. Thursday's forum at Clifton's gives downtown residents one more chance to question both candidates directly while voting is underway, though organizers caution that space is limited and RSVPs close at noon that day.
