2022 race for Mayor of Los Angeles takes a turn

| 11:15 pm EDT June 14, 2022
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The 2022 race for Mayor of Los Angeles is unusual in the sense that the top two candidates are both running as Democrats. Congresswoman Karen Bass, a longtime Democrat, is running against real estate developer Rick Caruso, who was a Republican right up until the minute he entered the race as a Democrat.

Caruso’s decades of Republican positions on the issues, along with his total inexperience in politics, are not a risk that Los Angeles can afford to take right now. The city is still trying to recover from various problems that arose during the height of the pandemic, including the local economy, housing, the unhoused, and so on. Bass can hit the ground running on day one and pull things together. If Caruso wins, everyone will have to hold their breath and hope that his lack of qualifications don’t cause him to implode once in office.

This race is using a formula in which all candidates from all parties run against each other in the primary. If any one candidate gets more than 50% of the primary vote, that candidate wins outright. If no candidate surpasses 50% in the primary, then the top two candidates – regardless of party – face off against each other in November.

The results are still coming in, because California counts mail-in votes that are postmarked by election day, no matter how long they take to arrive. For awhile, the partial vote counts gave Caruso a lead in the high single digits. But now that more mail-in votes have been counted, Bass has pulled ahead by three points.

All along it’s appeared highly unlikely that either candidate would get 50% of the primary vote, and that still appears to be the case. But whoever comes out ahead in the primary vote total is going to be the favorite to win in November. If the current trend continues, Bass will finish in first place in the primary voting.

Of course, no matter which candidate finishes in first place in the primary results, this is all just setting up a high stakes November election for Mayor of Los Angeles. If you agree that Karen Bass is solid and Rick Caruso is just too much of a risk, you can volunteer or donate to the Bass campaign here.