Bass, Raman or Pratt? Three L.A. residents explain who got their vote for mayor
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
As the voters deliver their ballots to neighborhood drop-off sites and others wait to vote in person Tuesday, Times reporters fanned out across the city to ask residents whom they planned to support for mayor.
Here is a sample of what voters said about their preferred candidate.
Some are calling it the most consequential — and uncertain — Los Angeles mayor’s race in a generation. Here is your last-minute guide.
‘The other choices were not worth my vote’
Steven Travers
57
Glassell Park
Self-employed
Voter Steven Travers told The Times that he didn’t feel like there were many options for him in the mayoral election this year, except for the incumbent Karen Bass.
Shopping at Vons in Echo Park, Travers said, “Just what I’ve seen of her, and you know, the way she speaks, she seems to be OK.”
“I guess she’s done an OK job since she’s been the mayor,” Travers said. “The people she’s running against, I mean, there’s really nobody else that I think I would want to be in that position.”
This decision to vote for Bass, despite the wide field of options, came down to how she had handled homelessness in the city and Travers’ neighborhood of Glassell Park, where there had been homelessness issues “for a period of time.”
The issue, Travers said, has been lessened and “certain areas things are getting a little bit cleaned up. And I’m assuming that she’s, you know, part of that whole thing.”
Follow live updates, analysis and highlights from 2026 election day’s key races, such as California governor, Los Angeles mayor, L.A. City Council and more.
Travers also said that “anybody involved in politics in Los Angeles” seems to always talk about homelessness “more than anything else” and that Bass “seems to be trying to maybe do something about it.”
Simply put, “The other choices were not worth my vote,” Travers said.
While the mayor’s race is getting national attention, voters will also decide a pivotal race for Los Angeles City Council that could have profound influence on the direction of local government.
Looking for a more humane L.A.
Zorah Archie-Winston
22
View Park
Recent USC graduate
Zorah Archie-Winston said that she’s probably voting for Nithya Raman for mayor.
“If I had to choose, like, right now, I think I’m leaning more towards Raman,” Archie-Winston said.
One of the main reasons for that, she said, is Raman’s personality and the humanity she brings to the table.
The 22-year-old View Park resident said that the unhoused population is something she feels very passionately about, and she believes Raman shares that.
“We could have, like, a lot more of a compassionate view on the unhoused population and those adjacent,” Archie-Winston said.
She said she’s been following along with Raman’s journey on the L.A. City Council and looks forward to seeing what the candidate could do as mayor, especially for tenancy rights.
“I think there are a lot of resources and things that are really inaccessible to those who are struggling to live in L.A. for one reason or another, and I think that’s something Raman will be able to help with,” Archie-Winston said.
What is on the California and Los Angeles ballots? Here is a guide to the 2026 June election in California.
‘He might be our only saving grace’
Ann Raljevich
66
Westchester
Medical biller
Ann Raljevich, a 66-year-old medical biller, says Spencer Pratt could be the city’s hero in the mayoral race.
“I think he might be our only saving grace,” said Raljevich, of Westchester.
Under the city’s current leadership, Raljevich tells The Times, she said she hasn’t seen change in the city. She said she still sees the same unkempt streets, drug addicts around town and high sales taxes.
“Being in the medical field — the drugs bring on the schizophrenia and bring on all the other things, and I mean, I see it when I drive in and out of town,” Raljevich said. “I see it everywhere.”
Raljevich said she also admired that Pratt was from Southern California and graduated from USC.
She said the fact that he hasn’t directly declared a political party affiliation shows that he doesn’t care what people think and is just here to do the job.
“He never really came out to say whether he’s a Republican or a Democrat,” Raljevich said. “He’s just for the people.”
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
UCLA professor and climate scientist, Alex Hall, joins host Kate Cagle to talk about how we can better prepare ourselves for the next mega-fire, including a proposal to create a classification system – and a standardized response – for Santa Ana wind storms, similar to the one we use for hurricanes in the U.S.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with actor and stand-up comedian Fabrizio Guido — currently starring in Netflix’s Running Point — for a conversation about growing up all over LA, making his film debut alongside Brad Pitt in World War Z at age 12, and what it took to build a career from child actor to leading man.
