L.A.’s police union went all out in this year’s city elections.
The Police Protective League poured well over $7 million into efforts to defeat mayoral candidate Nithya Raman over the last seven months, putting out attack ads, text messages and even a multi-page brochure highlighting her support from Democratic Socialists of America.
Raman beat Mayor Karen Bass anyway. And that wasn’t the only race where the PPL fell short.
The league, which represents about 8,500 officers, spent more than $1 million on its unsuccessful effort to torpedo Measure FD, the half-cent sales tax hike to fund the fire department. The union also waged campaigns this year against Marissa Roy for city attorney and in favor of Tim Gaspar, who lost his council race to Barri Worth Girvan in the San Fernando Valley.
Other big spenders faced similar losses.
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The Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group, put $3.8 million into outside campaigns supporting Bass, with about two-thirds coming from Airbnb. The group spent nearly $2.2 million boosting city attorney candidate John McKinney, who lost to Roy by a huge margin.
To hear the police union tell it, the year wasn’t a total bust. The league spent more than $1 million helping City Councilmember Traci Park fend off a potent challenge from attorney Faizah Malik in her Westside district in the June 2 primary. Several other police union-backed incumbents — including Tim McOsker and Monica Rodriguez — also sailed to primary victories.
The league cheered City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s primary loss, said PPL spokesman Tom Saggau. The union publicly rescinded its endorsement of her last spring, saying she had not been forthcoming about a data breach of records involving police cases. Feldstein Soto disputed that framing.
Saggau said the union is exploring a campaign to repeal Measure FD, which he described as a regressive “forever tax.” And he portrayed the Bass reelection effort as a challenge from the beginning, with voters locally and across the nation furious over dysfunctional government and rising costs.
“Affordability was massively important,” he said. “But we don’t have a big megaphone on affordability.”
Saggau said the union focused its public safety message on politically moderate parts of the city, including San Pedro, Westchester, parts of the San Fernando Valley and Pacific Palisades, where thousands of homes were destroyed in a massive wildfire last year. Bass performed better in those areas than many others, he said.
Raman takes office on Dec. 14. A month later, the PPL is slated to begin negotiations with the city over its next contract.
Pulling back from McKinney
The candidate in the city’s runoff election who received the biggest drubbing was McKinney, who lost to Roy in the city attorney’s race by a 2-to-1 margin.
As it turns out, some of McKinney’s biggest financial supporters ramped down their spending once they got past the June 2 primary election, when he and Roy knocked Feldstein Soto out of the running.
The Central City Assn. spent more than $2 million during the primary on a campaign promoting McKinney, all of it from Airbnb, but only $100,000 in the runoff. The police union spent about $356,000 against Roy in the primary, but nothing during the runoff.
Saggau said the PPL got involved in the race out of dissatisfaction with Feldstein Soto, who made enemies with the Central City Assn. as well.
“While John McKinney’s platform was more closely aligned with our priorities, we are confident that City Attorney-elect Roy understands the issues facing our members and is prepared to address them,” Nella McOsker, the group’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Airbnb also didn’t put money into any pro-McKinney campaigns during Round 2. In a statement, Airbnb senior public policy manager Justin Wesson said both runoff candidates offered a “positive vision for the city.”
Feldstein Soto was unavailable for comment on Friday. Her office sued Airbnb last year over allegations of price gouging, which the company denied. During her reelection campaign, she assailed McKinney over the money spent by Airbnb on his behalf.
Powered by the Palisades?
It might seem counterintuitive, but Pacific Palisades, a hotbed of anti-Bass sentiment since the 2025 Palisades fire, broke hard for the departing mayor over her challenger, according to preliminary vote counts.
On election night, when more than 730,000 ballots were tallied, Bass was leading Raman in all three Pacific Palisades precincts. Bass had at least 64% of the vote in each of them.
Those results could change once the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk releases precinct results for the hundreds of thousands of ballots that have been counted since election night.
Four years ago, voters in the Palisades turned out in large numbers for real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass citywide. This time around, Caruso told voters he was backing Bass.
Maryam Zar, who runs the Palisades Recovery Coalition, attributed the mayor’s strong showing in the neighborhood to the decision by Park, the local city councilmember, to publicly support her reelection. Park’s announcement, made during the campaign’s final weeks, swayed many Palisadians, she said.
“It was a vote for Traci Park,” Zar said.
State of play
— MENDING FENCES: They may have opposed her bid for mayor, but on Tuesday the City Council said mostly nice things about Raman during her first appearance on the council floor since the election. “They are making a calculated pivot to play nice,” said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College. “Let’s see how long it lasts.”
— KNIFE’S EDGE: The race for the council’s 9th District still hasn’t been called, with former council aide Jose Ugarte leading community organizer Estuardo Mazariegos by just 41 votes, according to the latest tally released Friday evening.
— A CRASHING ‘WAVE’: Speaking at a press event for the first time since she lost the election, Bass said she believed she was swept out in a change election, which she described as a national wave. “This happens every five or six years, that voters get in a space where they just want everything new,” she said.
— MAKING HISTORY: Voters broke new ground this year, electing Asian Americans to all three of L.A.’s citywide elected offices. Raman came to the U.S. from India as a child, while Roy’s mother also emigrated from India. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, reelected in June, is Filipino.
— REPLACING RAMAN: Residents in Raman’s Hollywood Hills district have begun worrying that the council might skip a special election to fill her seat and simply appoint someone to fill her seat for the two years. Neighborhood leaders have already started urging the council to call a special election. “Any other way is essentially backroom anointment,” said Rob Glushon, president of the Encino Property Owners Assn.
— HIKING CITY FEES: The council moved ahead with a plan to boost the cost of filing challenges to the city’s real estate development decisions, hiking the fee from $229 to $1,145 for those who live near a project. The increase would be even larger for those who live farther away. YIMBYs applauded the move, while one critic said it is designed to “shut the people up.”
— SALES TAXES TOO: With the passage of Measure FD, the sales tax rate in L.A. will increase to 10.75%, up from 10.25%. The measure will pay for fire department operations.
— RAMAN’S DILEMMA: On the campaign trail, Raman was highly critical of Police Chief Jim McDonnell, promising she would replace him if elected mayor. Now, with a showdown brewing, she will have to decide when and how fast to change out department leadership.
— STEPPING IT UP: One week after the polls closed, election workers in Los Angeles County had processed about 99% of the 3.2 million ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election. That’s a faster pace than previous election cycles.
— HERE’S HORVATH: Speaking of L.A. County, Supervisor Lindsay Horvath threw her hat in the ring to run for countywide chief executive in 2028. She’s viewed as a top contender for the brand-new office, which was created as part of a ballot measure she co-authored in 2024.
— HOW RAMAN WON: Here’s the backstory on how Raman won her campaign for mayor, which started in an ADU behind her Silver Lake home.
— TURNING THE TABLES: Bass ran on her ability to work well with others. But in the end, she saw key relationships disintegrate during her tenure, with several onetime allies working to drive her out of office.
— IDOL GOSSIP: Rock legend Billy Idol made a visit to City Hall on Friday, serving as the main attraction for the event Councilmember Monica Rodriguez — an aficionado of ’80s bands — called “Billy effing Idol Day.” Idol offered his thoughts on cities, telling the council “as long as you give, they give something back.” He then went out to the building’s Spring Street steps, where he played several songs before a cheering crowd.
QUICK HITS
- Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homeless program did not go to any new locations this week.
- On the docket next week: The council’s transportation committee meets Wednesday to discuss a proposal to let volunteers repaint aging crosswalks at city intersections.
Stay in touch
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