A race that benefits Karen Bass doesn’t benefit LA voters

from Jim NewtonCalMatters

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This week’s election in Los Angeles brought plenty of good news for Mayor Karen Bass. She finished at the top of a crowded field and secured a runoff spot in November. Even more advantageously, she might get the opponent she’s been hoping for.

From Wednesday afternoonreality TV personality Spencer Pratt edged out Councilwoman Nitya Raman by roughly 7 percentage points for second place.

That’s exactly what Bass wanted, and while it’s hardly a resounding endorsement of her tenure, it positions her well to be re-elected. At the same time, however, it should alert the city’s leadership to problems in the electorate and may, paradoxically, deny Los Angeles an important opportunity to discuss its difficulties.

The state of the electorate is represented by Pratt, who lost his Pacific Palisades home in the fires last year. Yes, he failed to produce a score that would make him a threat to Bass. With about 62% of the ballots counted, he received 30% of the vote. But the reality is that it is closer to the ceiling than the floor.

23% of Raman’s counted votes came from residents who were supposedly unhappy with some aspect of Bass’ record, but overwhelmingly came from residents to the political left of the mayor. They may think Bass has done too little to address affordability or that he’s spent too much on the police, but they won’t join Pratt’s camp.

Pratt intentionally offended Raman, as did her ideological opposite—his outbursts about homeless people are about as far from Raman’s point of view as you can imagine. A poll shared with me by Bass’s camp found that more than 90 percent of Raman’s supporters consider the incumbent their second choice.

So Bass advances with a much stronger position than four years ago when he defeated businessman Rick Caruso.

Pratt, on the other hand, is holding on to its 30% but has nowhere to grow. A few Adam Miller supporters might swallow hard and agree to support a not-so-bright Republican who is Donald Trump’s election to office. But even they might have a hard time voting for someone who knows nothing about how city government works and whose resume includes business of selling crystals and history of scattering money of bags and ammo.

However, if Pratt fails as a candidate, he sends something of a message, though not the one he intended. It says something — or should say something — to Los Angeles leaders that roughly a third of the city’s voters are so dissatisfied with life that they’re willing to support a patently absurd candidate to run the place. Those voters disagree on the specifics — some are upset about homelessness, others about the high cost of living or the pace of recovery after the fires — but it’s safe to say many are decidedly unhappy with Bass’s performance and the state of the city as a whole.

These are messages that the mayor and the municipality need to hear, even if they come from the campaign of a frivolous candidate.

What’s at stake here is that Pratt’s inability to mount a serious challenge will make it easy for Bass to pass up an opportunity to discuss the city’s future. Bass-Raman’s runoff offered that prospect, but Pratt’s challenge less so.

Pratt’s election results show that he is good at attracting attention, but only so-so at converting it into votes. His frothy social media content generated tons of buzz and even some national political coverage, which he used to suggest a “tsunami” of votes would give him an outright majority this week.

It didn’t happen.

Contrast the scenes this week on election night: Pratt shut reporters out of his gathering, creating a scrum of reporters jostling for position as he walked outside, for make a few observations. He seemed happy to answer, though mostly to hint that his candidacy was part of “God’s plan.”

Meanwhile, Bass introduced leaders of the city’s labor movement and business community. She uses her remarks to defend the breadth of her support and reiterate her determination to oppose President Trump, who supports Pratt and is astonishingly disliked by voters in Los Angeles. Bass, who was most comfortable working as a change agent, was hampered by having to promise change after having four years to deliver it. Still, the event reinforced the strength of her political position: big, broad and in tune with a city she’s represented for decades in Sacramento, Washington, and now at home.

“We’re a union town,” Bass said, to thunderous applause. She’s right about that, and it was a reminder that she understands the politics of this place in a way that Pratt just doesn’t.

Los Angeles has real issues that deserve substantial debate this year. For example, differences in housing policy that pit neighborhood advocates against proponents of faster construction and high-density development. Similarly, the city is rife with conflicting approaches to funding and directing law enforcement, which include Bass’ more traditional efforts to increase LAPD spending and Raman’s more progressive alternative of redirecting resources to mental health intervention and alternatives to conventional incarceration.

Pratt’s presence on the runoff makes these debates less likely for two reasons. First, his views on these and other issues are generally to the right of Bass and therefore well outside the mainstream of most Los Angeles voters, who are, if anything, more liberal than the mayor. Second, because he poses so little a threat to Bass’s re-election, she can afford to ignore him in a way she couldn’t ignore Raman.

The danger, then, is that this runoff unfolds more easily for Bass and thus offers fewer points for civic reflection. That would be a missed opportunity, and while Bass may not have to answer for it, there are significant pockets of the city that have misgivings about the mayor. Her critics have complained about slow housing progress and a lack of apparent urgency to reduce homelessness, as well as a more general sense that Bass is acting more like a legislative leader than a strong manager of city departments and priorities.

A serious contender will require Bass to consider these criticisms and explain them—and even, perhaps, adapt to better deal with them.

But they are unlikely to get much of the airplay in a campaign against an opponent as easily dismissed as a failed crystal dealer who accuses the mayor of setting fire to his house.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.