Rules governing elections are generating novel possible outcomes in the races for California’s two top executive offices — the governorship and the mayoralty of Los Angeles — and in LA they’re producing strange bedfellows as well.

At the state level, attention has centered around the possibility that two Republicans could emerge as top finishers in the June primary, a mathematically possible if politically unlikely scenario. It’s the result of the state’s top-two system, in which the two top vote getters in the primary automatically move to the runoff in November. 

Democrats generally prosper by that system since the state is overwhelmingly Democratic, but with two Republicans and eight Democrats on the ballot, there is an opportunity for the GOP to contend for an office that normal circumstances would place well out of its reach. Faced with that possibility, low-polling Democrats are being pressed to drop out, and some pundits are giving up on the top-two system altogether. 

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, the city’s election system has opened an unusual path for Mayor Karen Bass — if she uses more of her resources to boost the signal of a fringe candidate in order to clear the field of more serious opponents. 

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That’s a high-risk gambit that could either give her the opponent she wants or it could antagonize and fracture her support.

The rules and strategies for Los Angeles municipal elections are different from those at the state level, so these two races are not mirrors of each other. Start with the fact that the June municipal election is not a primary. It’s an actual election: If any candidate for mayor (or any other city office) wins more than 50% of the votes cast in June, that candidate wins. There’s no November runoff.

The city race also is different from the governor’s in that Los Angeles has an incumbent, Bass, who won comfortably four years ago. For challengers, that makes the campaign for mayor in some ways more difficult than the one for governor. Bass is weaker than she was four years ago, but she’s still mayor and has a strong core of support.

And finally, Los Angeles is different from California because LA is even more liberal than the state whose politics it anchors. In the runup to LA’s filing deadline, potential office-seekers to Bass’ political right melted away. But that wasn’t the real threat to her anyway. 

Instead, Bass is facing two candidates to her political left — City Councilmember Nithya Raman and community organizer Rae Huang — as well as one to her right, MAGA favorite and former TV personality Spencer Pratt, as well as a smattering of others, including tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who has told supporters he is prepared to loan his campaign more than $2 million of his own money.

That field includes much for Bass to be relieved about. It lacks a well-financed, high-profile challenger, and it features her in the top spot. One poll earlier this week showed her in second place, but it’s an outlier. She leads in all others, though not commandingly. 

But the field also exposes a potential vulnerability. The city’s political center of gravity may be shifting so rapidly that Bass, the first Black woman to hold the office and a veteran Democrat, may be too conservative for the city she governs. Add that to general voter dissatisfaction with her handling of the Palisades fire and its aftermath, and Bass could face a genuine threat from Raman, the most credible of her opponents.

As the various campaigns elbow toward the June 2 showdown, the city’s elections rules and its political demographics do provide Bass with an unusual, if controversial, option:  Either her campaign or one of her backers could spend heavily to raise Pratt’s profile, hoping that with Bass’ help he could edge out Raman and face Bass in a runoff.

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Mayor Karen Bass appeared to be on the path to an easy reelection, with no serious challengers in sight after a relatively drama-free first two years in office.

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But that was before a wildfire annihilated swaths of Pacific Palisades, putting Bass’ leadership under a national microscope, and before the city slid into a major financial crisis, with Bass searching for cuts to close a nearly $1-billion budget gap.

Now, the first-term mayor is markedly more vulnerable. The chattering among the city’s political class about potential competitors has grown louder. But it’s unclear whether anyone will mount a serious challenge to an incumbent who still wields considerable clout.

“You’re only actually vulnerable if a viable candidate runs against you,” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. “Right now, we don’t see who that viable candidate would be.”

The $108-million question remains whether Bass’ frequent antagonist and former opponent Rick Caruso will challenge her again. Caruso, who was at times more visible after the Jan. 7 fire than the mayor, spent unprecedented sums of his personal fortune in the 2022 race, only to lose to Bass by nearly 10 points.

The developer has intimated that he’s weighing a run for either mayor or governor — or might sit out the next cycle. His deep pockets give him the luxury of avoiding a decision until he absolutely has to, meaning he could wait until early 2026 before entering the fray.

A number of other names keep coming up in political circles, though none have said they plan to run, and several have swatted away the idea.

The list includes Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, an iconoclastic force who has been sharply critical of the mayor’s initiatives; Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades and has become something of a folk hero in her district since the fire; and City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who waged an insurgent leftist campaign in 2022 and has been fiercely outspoken on the reasons for the city’s financial crisis.

Some political insiders have raised the possibility of another maverick, business-friendly candidate emerging from outside the system, though few of the names floated seem particularly realistic.

The June primary is still 14 months away, an eternity in politics. Time might heal all wounds for the embattled mayor, and the Democratic Party establishment could recircle the wagons around her like it did in 2022. Or she could stumble further.

As a candidate, Bass made homelessness her signature issue, pledging to move people off L.A.’s streets and into housing. Although she has made progress on that front, Los Angeles County’s recent decision to pull more than $300 million out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority will complicate her efforts.

In any case, it may be recovery from the fire — and not homelessness — that defines Bass’ legacy. Many Angelenos expressed dissatisfaction with her early fire response, with less than 1 in 5 characterizing it as good or excellent, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Times, conducted in late February.

The mayor drew public ire for traveling out of the country before the fires exploded, taking a diplomatic trip to Ghana despite warnings of severe winds. She floundered when initially asked about her trip, faced criticism from her fire chief — whom she later ousted — and appeared to be out of sync with her own recovery czar.

Bass is also facing a recall attempt, though it will be a steep climb for organizers to collect enough signatures to force a vote.

Bass’ political consultant, Doug Herman, said the mayor remains “laser-focused on delivering results for this city.”

“Mayor Bass is continuing to lead with drops in crime, the first decrease in homelessness in years and is currently turning Los Angeles around from the devastating wildfires with one of the fastest recovery and rebuilding efforts in modern California history,” he said.

Several polls have been circulated to voters in recent weeks, asking what they think of Bass’ performance and how they would rate a number of potential candidates for mayor, including Rodriguez, Park, Caruso and Bass. It’s unclear who paid to put each poll in the field.

Caruso, a billionaire mall mogul, said through a spokesperson that he is “wholly focused” on rebuilding work through his nonprofit Steadfast LA — and has yet to make any decision about his political future. But he brought on veteran Democratic political consultant Eric Koch in January to do communications for him and is thought to be behind at least one of the recent polls.

Bass handily vanquished Caruso in 2022, after branding him as a Republican. It’s unclear how that line of attack will play four years later, with the city still in recovery mode and Angelenos feeling far more frustration toward the incumbent mayor.

But Angelenos’ fury toward President Trump could also hurt Caruso, who only registered as a Democrat in January 2022, less than a month before filing to run in that year’s mayoral election.

Regardless, Bass will have one major advantage she didn’t have the last go-round: support from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, which backed Caruso last time.

The union’s campaign committee spent more than $3 million attacking Bass in 2022. Now, the union credits the mayor, along with its police officers, with driving down the number of homicides, burglaries and shootings across the city.

“The Los Angeles Police Protective League enthusiastically endorses Mayor Karen Bass for reelection, and we look forward to ensuring the residents of our city know that this mayor has an unwavering commitment to keep Angelenos and police officers safe,” the league’s board said in a statement.

For Bass, the most dangerous scenario would be a contest with multiple credible challengers. Mayor James K. Hahn faced that situation during the 2005 primary election and went on to lose in a landslide to then-Councilmember Antonio Villaraigosa.

Mejia said through a representative that he has no interest in running for mayor at this time. He recently formed a campaign committee to run for a second term as controller in 2026.

Park, who is also seeking reelection, has told Bass that she has no plans to run against her.

“The council member has made it clear that she needs to be with her constituents at this time of crisis in her district,” said Park spokesperson Pete Brown.

As of early April, two people had filed paperwork to challenge Bass: Vincent Wali and Asaad Y. Alnajjar. Wali has little public profile, and Alnajjar is a longtime city engineer.

“The real question is, if [Caruso] doesn’t run, can someone fill that void. … People are clearly looking at what is the sort of moderate to right lane to challenge her,” said Mike Bonin, a progressive former City Council member and the incoming executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times