Fourteen Angelenos have qualified to run for mayor, including incumbent Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt. Seven City Council incumbents face at least one challenger, while Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is running unopposed to represent her northeast San Fernando Valley district.
This is a wide open race. The general narrative [of the poll] is that the mayor is not popular for somebody going into reelection, but the majority of people have not made up their mind whether they'll come back to her or go to someone else.
I had to set fire to my scorecard, and to the column I had just drafted, which touched on all the expected big-name challengers who had bowed out of the mayoral race in the past several days: L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, billionaire businessman Rick Caruso (who forced a runoff with Bass the last time around), and former L.A. Unified schools chief Austin Beutner.
The three charter reform measures Lurie and Mandelman have proposed are 1) giving the mayor powers currently held by independent City Hall commissions, 2) making it harder to put ballot measures on San Francisco election ballots, and 3) making the City Administrator's term ten years instead of five years, and giving the Administrator more authority over contracts.
