A new poll shows Los Angeles mayoral challenger Nithya Raman leading incumbent Karen Bass by 24 points among Latino likely voters, a swing that lands just as the two candidates prepare to answer voter questions in separate televised sessions Thursday night.
The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll, conducted Sept. 15–20 and released Oct. 2, found Raman at 45% and Bass at 21% among Latino likely voters, with 34% still undecided ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
The numbers have landed in the middle of a sharpening fight between the two campaigns over the LAPD, immigration enforcement and a social media video that put Raman on the defensive.
Bass went after Raman on Thursday, calling her challenger “incredibly irresponsible” and questioning whether she’s ready for the job.
“It certainly showed that she is not ready for prime time,” Bass said. “I even question if she understands what fascism is or its place in history.”
The remarks came hours before both candidates were set to appear separately at a Univision 34 forum for Hispanic voters at 7 p.m.
Crime and public safety ranked among the top issues for Los Angeles voters in the Berkeley poll, alongside homelessness, affordable housing and city infrastructure — and the LAPD has become the clearest fault line between the two candidates. Bass has stood behind Chief Jim McDonnell, whom she appointed in 2024, pointing to significant declines in violent crime under his leadership. Raman has said she would replace McDonnell if elected, arguing his handling of federal immigration raids and the protests that followed fell short.
The latest flashpoint was a now-deleted social media video in which Raman, appearing with content creator Ed Choi, repeated the phrase “Only you can stop fascist liars” over images that included Bass and McDonnell, with a red X placed over the police chief’s face. The Los Angeles Police Protective League said the imagery could put McDonnell at risk.
Raman’s campaign says her comments were aimed at ICE and the Trump administration, not McDonnell, and that the video’s creator added the imagery after the interview without her input. The campaign said it asked for the video to be taken down.
The Berkeley poll also found a wide generational split among Latino voters. Raman led Bass 60% to 9% among those 18 to 49. Among Latino voters 50 and older, Bass led 36% to 26%.
That marks a reversal from the June primary, when a Los Angeles Times analysis found Bass carried 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods to Raman’s seven.
Bass’s campaign has pushed back on the Berkeley poll’s methodology, citing its own August internal survey showing Bass ahead of Raman by two points among Latino voters. The Berkeley poll surveyed 427 Latino respondents, with a margin of error of six points for that group.
Thursday’s event, called “Los Latinos Preguntan: Los Candidatos Responden,” will not be a head-to-head debate. Instead, each candidate gets a separate 30-minute session answering questions from roughly 15 to 20 members of the city’s Hispanic community on public safety, homelessness, housing costs, jobs and the economy. Univision anchors Gabriela Tessier and Octavio Valdez will moderate. The forum airs at 7 p.m. on Univision 34 and streams nationally on ViX.
