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Tens of thousands of people have rallied across Spain as protests have spread since the conservative-dominated parliament rejected a bill proposing measures to tackle a housing crisis.

Parliament on Friday voted down two decrees proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority left-wing coalition government that were intended to address the housing crisis.

The protests erupted late last month after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home of 70 years in the capital, Madrid. Maria del Carmen Abascal’s eviction came after an international investment fund bought her building and hiked the rent.

Local media reports have suggested that Sanchez could call snap elections for as early as November after watching the strength of Saturday’s protests across the country. Spain’s current legislative term is set to end next summer.

Will the housing crisis trigger snap elections? Here’s what we know:

What happened on Friday in parliament?

The emergency measures proposed by Spain’s leftist government to tackle the country’s housing affordability crisis failed to pass on Friday.

The government had proposed two measures to protect renters in the country. The first decree was meant to stop evictions of vulnerable people, make real estate speculation harder, impose tighter restrictions on short-term leases and provide tax incentives to encourage renting and the construction of housing.

The second decree proposed making leases automatically renew when they are set to expire, essentially making them indefinite. A property owner would have to pay a tenant 12 months of rent to break the contract.

Sanchez, who leads a coalition government composed of his Socialist Party and the far-left Sumar, ⁠appealed to lawmakers in the run-up to the vote to put aside political calculations and pressure.

“Think about ordinary people, about those who most need the protection of public institutions. Think about the millions of young people who ⁠cannot afford to ⁠move out of their parents’ homes. Think about the families living with the constant ⁠anxiety of ever-rising rents,” he said before the voting.

But his government’s proposed measures were shot down by the majority of ⁠the 350-seat lower house of parliament.

The right-wing ⁠Catalan separatist ⁠party Junts refused to back the housing decrees, saying they would ultimately tighten the housing market. The centre-right Popular Party and far-right Vox also voted against the measures.

Miriam Nogueras of Junts argued the decrees would lead only to owners removing their properties from the rental market and thus driving up prices even further.

“If they really wanted to protect people, collar the vulture funds, and reactivate housing, they would have already done it. They’ve had eight years,” she added on X, referring to Sanchez’s government.

Health Minister Monica Garcia said on X that the right-wing parties “have voted for a feudal economy in which a minority extracts the salary from a majority that works for their luxuries. And they do it against their own voters, who also suffer increasingly high rents, live in fear that the contract will end and can even be evicted.”

“Today the right has given rent-seeking a parliamentary majority that it doesn’t have on the street, but it’s going to pay for it sooner rather than later,” she added.

Before the parliamentary vote, Marta Soler Gallart, head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Barcelona, explained that neither of the two decrees addressed the housing problem in the medium or long term.

“Models such as Vienna’s with its low rents are cited in support of these decrees, but it is overlooked that the Vienna model and others have low rents because of their long history of creating and maintaining public social housing,” Soler Gallart told Al Jazeera on September 30.

“In Spain, however, public funds are invested in social housing which, after a while, the recipients sell at market price.”

Soler Gallart also said the new measures disadvantage landlords with small or few properties by extending five-year tenancy agreements by a further two years and by providing an indefinite extension of their leases.

“However, these extensions are not compulsory if the landlord can prove that they need the property for their own use,” she said.

Why are people protesting across Spain?

Protests erupted across Spain in late September after 87-year-old Abascal was evicted from her home. The investment fund that bought her building hiked her rent by more than 200 percent to roughly $1,880 a month, a move aimed at pushing out the long-term tenant to make way for lucrative tourist apartments.

In recent years, Spain has seen protests against mass tourism, which has been linked to the housing crisis and soaring cost of living. Spain is the second most visited country in the world, attracting 97 million tourists last year.

While Abascal has returned to her home, according to her representatives, she has become the face of the country’s housing crisis, and people across Spain have been demanding the government address the issue.

Angered by parliament’s rejection of the government measures, tens of thousands of people took to the streets.

“It’s a shame,” Nando de Anguulo, 26, who joined Saturday’s protest in Madrid, told the Reuters news agency.

“It only proves that it is us, the people, who have to adapt to the political parties and not the politicians to what the people want, and this can’t go on like that.”

While the protests were mostly peaceful, in the southeastern city of Valencia, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up demonstrations. About 30 protesters managed to get inside the City of Arts and Sciences, a landmark cultural building, before police removed them.

Meanwhile, in Madrid, Spanish police arrested three members of a far-right group and fired rubber bullets on Saturday night.

Far-right activists, some of whom performed Nazi salutes, tried to reach demonstrators camped out in the Puerta del Sol, a central square in the Spanish capital, the Spanish government said.

Valeria Racu, a spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union, said Saturday’s rallies revealed “a new energy that we haven’t seen in a long time and energy that is showing that eight days of people’s power can achieve more than eight years of progressive government”.

“Now begins real politics – politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets,” Racu added.

Could the housing crisis lead to snap elections?

Housing is a sensitive issue in Spain because it impacts how people vote. The average rent in the country has almost doubled in the past 10 years. The average price per square metre has risen from 8.20 euros (about $9.08 at the time) in 2016 to 15.1 euros ($17.15) this year, according to the real estate website Idealista.

In an October 1 article for Vanity Fair, Spanish journalist Jorge Dioni Lopez noted that after eight years in power, housing is what is causing Sanchez to lose support among educated young people, children of the middle classes.

“The government faces a difficult situation. Firstly, because most of the relevant powers lie with other levels of government. Secondly, because Spain is a nation of homeowners. Unlike in other European countries, almost all the public housing that has been built has ended up in private hands, and historically, homeownership has been more attractive than renting,” he wrote.

“Housing is our savings system and also the primary means of transmitting wealth between generations,” he added.

After Spain’s parliament rejected the government’s housing reform bills on Friday, the leader of the centre-right People’s Party, (PP) Alberto Nunez Feijoo, urged Sanchez to “call elections as soon as possible”, claiming he had the support of “neither the streets nor parliament”.

While Sanchez has not officially announced new elections, the Spanish online news site El Diario has reported that elections could take place as early as November 29. Spain’s general elections are currently scheduled for July 2027.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans say the US-Israeli war is not worth fighting, marking a significant spike since July.

Approximately 70 percent of US adults in a new nationwide poll say the US-Israeli war has not been worth fighting, a five-point spike since July.

“Seventy-one percent of adults disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran and 69 percent say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting,” said the survey released on Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 adults in the US, also suggested that Americans are deeply frustrated with US President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy and rising prices, with only 17 percent of US adults polled approving of his handling of the cost of living. Just 26 percent approved of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.

Public angst over fuel costs has surged, with about half of respondents now deeply concerned about being able to fill their tanks —up from 39 percent in July. Roughly half of respondents are also highly concerned about being able to afford food.

The data comes as Trump kickstarts his midterm campaign trail in an all-in effort to galvanise the Republican base, stumping first in Texas and Oklahoma amid widespread voter anxiety surrounding the war on Iran’s mounting economic fallout.

The poll also indicated that, despite their frustration, two-thirds of Republicans surveyed said that higher than usual prices are due to factors outside of Trump’s control, with about one-third saying it was directly related to Trump’s policies.

The sombre numbers suggest the president remains deeply unpopular nationally, with some Republicans also faulting him for failing to deliver on promised relief.

‘Pollsters are corrupt’

Overall, more than half of adult respondents said the national economy and the country as a whole are worse off since President Trump took office again in 2025.

In an interview with TIME magazine, published on Thursday, Trump was asked if the deeply unwanted war would threaten his party’s chances in November, to which he initially responded, “It’s possible,” before adding that “it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Confronted with sliding poll numbers, Trump said that the “pollsters are corrupt” and that the bad polls “are fake”, adding that he would beat anybody running today “by 20 points”.

WASHINGTON — About half of rural voters identify with Make America Healthy Again, a sprawling political movement championed by the Trump administration, but most said President Trump’s healthcare policies have not benefited their communities, according to a new poll from The Associated Press in partnership with KFF.

About 8 in 10 rural voters — an important voting bloc for Trump and fellow Republicans — said the Trump administration’s policies have had a negative effect or no impact on the health of people where they live. Most MAHA supporters, 68%, also feel this way, according to the national survey of more than 2,000 rural registered voters.

The findings signal an apparent disconnect between the Trump administration’s MAHA-branded policy priorities and rural America’s perception of their reach and effectiveness.

Iowa pastor Mike Jager, 58, is a registered Republican and considers himself part of the MAHA movement. The Trump administration’s health policies have had “minimal” impact on the health of his community, Jager said, but he added that Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is moving the needle “in the right direction.”

“It’s a beginning,” Jager said. “It’s a big ship to try and turn around and course-correct.”

Kennedy has used the MAHA label to support various agendas, including abandoning long-standing vaccine guidance, researching ultraprocessed foods and investing in regenerative agriculture.

Jager lives in Sumner, Iowa, “less than a quarter mile from where the corn ends and the city begins.” He’s seen family members and neighbors develop diseases that he believes resulted in part from exposure to agricultural chemicals and consumption of unhealthy, processed foods.

In the June Republican primary for governor, Jager voted for Zach Lahn, a businessman and farmer who ran on a MAHA platform and beat out Trump-backed U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra. He plans to vote for him again in November.

Many rural voters are prioritizing health issues

About two-thirds of rural voters who support MAHA said it’s “extremely” or “very” important to them to vote for a candidate who does, too, while only 4 in 10 rural voters overall said the same.

Trump sought to seize on MAHA support during his campaign for another term two years ago. Now, amid tight midterm races, Kennedy has campaigned to galvanize the movement’s support. In May, he attended a MAHA bill signing with Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, and in August, he went fishing with Lahn, posting about it on social media.

Yet the survey indicates voters are noticing “this weird split in the Trump administration” between what Kennedy messages and what Trump says and does, said David Peterson, a political science professor at Iowa State University.

In Iowa, concerns about what’s causing rising cancer rates are “a big deal,” he said. For many people who identify with MAHA, being healthy includes taking on corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies that they think cause cancer, he added.

In the poll, views on healthcare access and costs largely diverged along party lines. Most Democratic and independent voters said the Trump administration’s healthcare policies have had a negative impact on their healthcare costs and the health and well-being of people in their communities. Republicans were likelier to say there hasn’t been an impact.

Talking on the phone from her 200-acre farm in Carroll County, Iowa, 71-year-old Donna Klocke said that her husband had died from cancer and that she has neighbors who also have cancer.

“It’s just very prevalent,” Klocke said. “We’re in a farming community. We use chemicals and pesticides and all kinds of things that aren’t necessarily good for us.”

Klocke, a Democrat, said the MAHA movement is a good idea because she cares about being healthy, but she does not consider herself part of it and will not be voting for a candidate who represents the movement.

Kennedy, who was an anti-vaccine activist before entering politics and has sent mixed messages to Americans about getting the measles vaccine, scares her.

“Measles are coming back and polio,” Klocke said. “It’s the measles that really gets me. It’s like, do you not understand how dangerous it is?”

Survey reflects angst over healthcare

Nearly half of rural voters said their communities don’t have enough doctors or other healthcare providers, and even more said there aren’t enough mental health workers specifically. The share of rural voters who said their community does not have enough hospitals increased to 35% from 21% in a similar question asked in a KFF-Washington Post survey in 2017.

And as with the general population, healthcare, gas and grocery costs are top pain points. At least 6 in 10 rural voters said they were worried about healthcare costs.

The level of worry varied based on coverage, with rural voters enrolled in employer plans or Medicare less likely to be worried. The survey found that 80% of working-age rural voters on Medicaid were very or somewhat worried about healthcare costs. Last year, Republicans passed a tax and spending bill that cut over $900 billion in projected Medicaid spending over a decade and mandated new eligibility requirements.

In the tiny community of Lipan, Texas, west of Dallas, Kim Solis and her husband have a handyman-and-home-remodel business and get their insurance on the marketplace. Since Trump returned to office, their premium payment jumped from zero to $166 a month. Their copays went up, and their deductibles each increased by $2,000.

Solis, 62, said she worries what will happen if they get a big medical bill.

“Certainly, we’d be in a world of hurt trying to take money out of savings or getting it out of our 401(k) just to be able to do something about it,” she said.

Most MAHA voters are also MAGA — but not all

Like the general population, rural voters said they trust their own doctors and healthcare providers for health information over government agencies or officials, according to the poll.

Trust in Kennedy and Trump fell largely along partisan lines. About 10% of rural Democratic voters reported having a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in Kennedy, compared with 74% of rural Republican voters. About 5% of rural Democrats and 69% of rural Republicans said they trust Trump a “great deal” or “fair amount” for reliable health information.

While Make America Great Again and MAHA identities are “linked in a lot of ways,” the rising costs of healthcare and groceries pose a challenge for those committed to the MAHA principles that Kennedy promotes, said Peterson, the Iowa State professor.

Buying healthy food “becomes, ‘I can’t afford to do that because of Trump’s policies,’” he said.

In Stamping Ground, Kentucky, Alma Johnson, 65, works night security at a horse farm.

Johnson voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024 and said she “pretty much” likes how Trump is running the country. But she said she is not a MAGA devotee, preferring to “think for myself.”

MAHA, however, is an easy sell for Johnson because, she said, she doesn’t think people should be able to buy junk food in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Still, she said she hasn’t seen much impact from the Trump administration’s healthcare policies, including the new food pyramid.

“It takes a long time to change people, their habits, their thoughts or the things they do,” Johnson said.

Swenson, Tribble and Sanders write for the Associated Press.

The poll of 2,241 U.S. adults registered to vote in rural areas of the country was conducted Aug. 12-24, 2026, using a sample drawn from the probability-based SSRS Opinion Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In collaboration with AP, KFF researchers worked to design the survey sample and questionnaire, analyze and report findings. This report is a collaboration between the Associated Press and KFF Health News. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

With gas prices topping $6 a gallon and an unpopular war continuing in Iran, President Trump’s approval has slipped with California Republicans — a falloff that could diminish the party’s chances in the state’s few competitive congressional races.

A new poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 76% of Republican voters in the state approve of the president’s performance, down from 83% last year.

The president’s approval has softened even among those who still support his performance. Only 44% of Republicans in California said they strongly support Trump’s performance, down from 57% who said the same in August 2025.

That could translate into lower Republican turnout in the state’s few competitive races, said the poll’s director, Mark DiCamillo.

“Republicans are losing some of their enthusiasm in terms of being motivated to vote,” he said.

In addition, the more Trump tries to make the midterm elections about himself — such as the pro-Trump ads recently sponsored and paid for by the government — the more Democrats might be inclined to show up, said G. Cristina Mora, the UC Berkeley institute’s co-director.

“That might actually have a galvanizing effect on voters,” she said.

Trump’s sinking support in California mirrors a national decline in the president’s approval, even among Republicans.

The congressional map in the state was already challenging for Republicans after voters last year approved a referendum championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to redraw districts to be more favorable for Democrats — a response to similar efforts by Republicans in Texas and other states.

In the new map, only four of the state’s 52 districts are currently considered safe Republican districts, while three additional districts are seen as competitive, according to the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political handicapper.

The remaining 45 districts are seen as either likely or solidly Democratic in a state where Democrats hold a roughly 20% advantage in party registration.

Only one race is considered by Cook to be a true toss-up — California’s 22nd Congressional District in the Central Valley, which is held by Republican Rep. David Valadao.

“We’re looking at the best case scenario for Democrats at this point,” said Erin Covey, Cook’s U.S. House editor.

Valadao, one of only 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, faces progressive Democrat Randy Villegas, a political science professor who has the backing of Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator is joining Villegas this weekend for a rally in Bakersfield.

Valadao first won a seat in Congress in 2012, but was ousted from office during the Democrats’ “blue wave” election in 2018, in which the party gained 40 seats in the House in the first election after Trump took office in 2016. Valadao was able to win back his seat in 2020 and has held it since.

There has been scant public polling in the race, but a poll conducted in June by a political committee backing Villegas showed the Democrat holding a 4-point lead over Valadao.

Two other congressional districts in the state are listed by Cook as leaning Democratic:

• California’s 48th Congressional District in Riverside and San Diego counties, now held by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who opted to retire rather than seek reelection in the redrawn district.
• California’s 13th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley, where Democratic Rep. Adam Gray is trying to fend off a challenge from Republican Kevin Lincoln, the former mayor of Stockton.

Trump’s approval also dipped among Black and Latino voters in the poll. Both groups were part of Trump’s winning coalition in the 2024 presidential election.

The poll also found broad disapproval of two signature Trump administration policies.

It found that 70% of California voters disapprove of Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran, including 1 in 5 Republicans.

Also, 70% of California voters believe that the president’s immigration policies are hurting California’s economy and local businesses, including 1 in 5 Republicans.

The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20 and included the opinions of 6,989 registered California voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

Opponents of the billionaire tax on the November ballot have vastly outraised the proposal’s supporters, with the anti-Proposition 40 effort and the backers of two other ballot measures crafted to nullify it raising $187 million compared to the $32 million raised by boosters of the wealth tax, according to campaign finance documents filed with the state.

The reports, filed Thursday, account for donations through Sept. 19 and do not include several million dollars that have poured into campaign coffers in recent days. The numbers are expected to vastly increase before the Nov. 3 election.

The bulk of the money raised by the proponents of Proposition 40, which would enact a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires’ assets, appears to have been spent on gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot. The campaign had only $207,000 in the bank, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

A leader of the union that crafted the proposal accused wealthy Californians who are spending heavily against the measure of lying to voters. The measure is designed to offset $100 billion in impending federal healthcare funding cuts expected to impacts millions of Californians.

“The billionaires take and take — tax break after tax break — and now they’re spending that money to deceive voters and avoid paying their fair share,” said Suzanne Jimenez, the chief of staff of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West. “Voters want their money back from the billionaires and want local emergency rooms to stay open. California does not need more tax breaks for billionaires. California needs emergency rooms for patients, hospitals that stay open, and healthcare people can access and afford.”

Opponents of the billionaire tax argue that it would do more harm than good.

“The more Californians learn, the more they see Proposition 40 for what it is — a harmful tax scheme that permanently damages the state’s budget and economy with zero accountability or safeguards to ensure funding actually improves care or lowers costs for patients,” said California Medical Assn. President Dr. René Bravo, the leader of one of the groups opposing the billionaire tax.

Proposition 41 would nullify the billionaire tax if, in the event that both measures are approved, it receives more “yes” votes. Proposition 41 would prohibit any new state tax from being excluded from a voter-approved cap that restricts how much tax revenue the state can spend each year.

“Californians deserve better results for their hard-earned tax dollars,” said Molly Weedn, a spokesperson for the Proposition 41 campaign.

Proposition 42 would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets, and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of Proposition 40. If both measures pass and Proposition 42 receives more “yes” votes, it would nullify the wealth tax.

The proposed billionaire tax has divided California Democrats, with Gov. Gavin Newsom opposing it while the state Democratic party supports it.

In recent polling, a majority of likely voters did not support any of the three proposals.

While 45% of likely voters supported the billionaire tax, 42% opposed it, according to a poll released Friday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Voters also are torn about the two ballot measures designed to nullify it.

The other measure receiving great attention, Proposition 39, which would require voters to show government-issued ID to cast ballots, faces a similar financial disparity. Opponents to the measure have raised $39.3 million compared to $15.6 million garnered by supporters.

Fifty-two percent of likely California voters oppose the voter ID proposal, while 39% support it and 9% are undecided, according to the Berkeley poll.

In the race to replace Newsom, Democratic former Biden cabinet member Xavier Becerra has raised $35.8 million, while his GOP rival, conservative strategist and television commentator Steve Hilton, has raised $22.3 million.

Becerra remains the front-runner in the governor’s race, which is not surprising since Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1. In last week’s Berkeley poll, the Democrat had the support of 58% of likely voters, while 33% backed the Republican.

California Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy has a lead in the race to replace Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, who lost her seat in a historic primary rout this spring, new polling shows.

Among likely Los Angeles voters, Roy leads by 10 percentage points over her rival, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, following the pair’s shocking electoral upset in June, according to a poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

The spread closely mirrors City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s breakaway lead in her bitter fight to unseat Mayor Karen Bass, who has outraised her for months.

But that’s where the similarities end.

The mayor’s contest has been called a “knife fight” for its no-holds-barred campaigning. It has also drawn sustained — and occasionally sensational — national attention since Raman’s buzzer-beating entrance in February.

By contrast, the city attorney’s race remains all but unknown: More than two-thirds of likely voters are still undecided, versus about a third who remain uncommitted in the mayor’s contest, polling showed.

L.A.’s top litigator commands a budget of nearly $200 million, plays a role in shaping city ordinances, and wages court battles on behalf of the public. The city attorney also prosecutes misdemeanors — a job most other cities keep separate. Each year, the office weighs some 120,000 violations, deciding whether to file charges and how to pursue them.

More recently, city attorneys across the country have championed activist litigation, spearheading suits against the Trump administration, among others.

Yet, few local voters know the job exists, and fewer still know the candidates by name.

Seventy percent of likely voters said they had no opinion of either McKinney or Roy — a fairly typical result for a down-ballot race, experts note.

Still, new data about voter priorities could signal how those undecideds might shake up the race in its final weeks.

Roughly a third of L.A. voters rank “moving homeless people indoors” and “crime and public safety” as top priorities, respectively; just slightly less say “fixing streets, sidewalks, streetlights and other city infrastructure” is essential.

McKinney, 58, pitches himself as a law-and-order moderate with plans to use the city attorney’s prosecutorial power to reduce disorder and move unhoused people off the streets. He manages more than 300 people at the district attorney’s office and spent decades in the courtroom securing high-profile convictions — advantages that he contends outweigh his lack of civil litigation experience.

Roy, 34, campaigns with an aura of sunny progressive pragmatism, arguing that the city can rein in ballooning liability in part by tackling its vexing infrastructure issues. She nods to the recent $17-billion settlement with Meta — a case her team at the attorney general’s office led — as evidence of the kind of ambitious, public interest litigation a large municipal attorney’s office could join.

Those disparate visions — along with crucial endorsements and influxes of cash — helped the pair define clear brands and constituencies going into the primary.

Both also got a boost from nationwide anti-incumbent fervor, staking sides across a mutual opponent whose name recognition had turned sour while rarely taking aim at each other.

But the general election is a different animal.

Although the Los Angeles electorate has been moving leftward for years, primary voters typically skew older and more conservative than those who show up for the general election, experts said.

Polls suggest that fact could create an uphill battle for McKinney, whose sway is biggest among conservatives, about 19% of the city’s electorate.

Some 21% of Republicans and nearly 30% of self-identified MAGA voters favored McKinney in the most recent poll, while Roy is favored by 25% of Democrats and by 3 in 10 voters who identify as progressive or democratic socialists.

By contrast, about a quarter of Republican voters now say they favor Bass for mayor, while Raman has a 14-point lead among Democrats. (Both are about equally underwater with MAGA voters.)

Like Raman, Roy has deep ties to the city’s insurgent democratic socialist political machine and hard-won endorsements from its progressive clubs. She has also successfully courted L.A.‘s influential unions and got an early boost from the L.A. County Democratic Party when it endorsed her this spring.

McKinney is endorsed by the city’s powerful police union and championed by L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman.

The once simple message, “Get out the vote,” now has a corollary: “Protect the vote.”

That message was hammered home Saturday for dozens of voting rights groups, community organizations and unions attending a rally to recruit and train poll watchers for the November election.

Organizers for several groups brought together under the banner of Love Powers L.A. offered scenarios of the threats that could materialize on Nov. 3 — from ICE raids to intimidation by the Proud Boys — and detailed strategies to counter them.

Their goal was to raise a cadre of volunteers for a Neighborhood Vote Protection Program to observe 650 polling places throughout the 11 days of voting and to turn fear and confusion sought by election deniers into a celebration of the right to vote.

“We want to make it a season of excitement,” said Jeremy Payne of the social justice group Catalyst California.

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1. David Gutierrez right, of Inner City Struggle, signs up Jocelyn Elizalde, 22, and Manuel Becerra, 19, from left, to help with outreach, during an event held by Love Powers LA, representing dozens of community groups and labor unions, provide education and training to Angelenos on how to protect their vote and respond to threats of election interference at East Los Angeles College on Saturday, September 26, 2026. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) 2. Participants including Evelyn Gonzalez, right, attend a workshop for activist dance and street activation during an event by Love Powers LA, representing dozens of community groups and labor unions, providing education and training to Angelenos on how to protect their vote and respond to threats of election interference, at East Los Angeles College on Saturday, September 26, 2026. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

The event kicked off with multicultural music by Native American, Korean and West African drum ensembles.

Speakers from groups as diverse as Can’t Stop California, Inner City Struggle and Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education: SCOPE detailed the threat and their programs to respond to it for 300 prospective volunteers.

“L.A. is a target for retribution and spectacle,” said John Lee, also of Catalyst California. “When they try to steal an election, it is a sign they know they are losing.”

Godfrey Plata of L.A. Forward, left, and Jung Hee Choi of We Are California present skits on how to talk to neighbors about voting during the event Saturday.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The event, involving numerous nonprofit organizations, stayed away from endorsements or political messages aimed at the coming election. But speakers didn’t hold back on their views of President Trump.

“Trump is a chicken and a loser,” said Jung Hee Choi, of the umbrella group We Are California.

Choi described two personality types, skeptics and frozen, that the group is targeting.

She urged volunteers to hold ballot parties in their homes to move skeptics “from the couch to the poll” and routine voters from the “frozen mode to the fight mode.”

“We need people out at the polls,” she said. “You are the greatest tool to fight back and grow our movement.”

The groups held their event just a day after Trump’s latest move in his attempt to reshape voting in America.

The Supreme Court upheld Trump’s expanded use of government data to search for noncitizens who are registered to vote. The impact of the decision is likely to be limited, other than to highlight Trump’s distrust of elections and his unproven claims that a large number of illegal voters are casting ballots.

Love Powers L.A., representing dozens of community groups and labor unions, provides education and training to Angelenos including Azenith Morales, Marise Roxas, and Liezl Japona, from left, of the Filipino Workers Center, on how to protect their vote and respond to threats of election interference.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Breakout sessions covered how to plan a ballot party, activist dances and street activations.

Attendee Joe Pugh, who works for the community services organization ATAP, said she planned to host a block party to push the importance of voting in South-Central.

“They’re always talking about ‘my vote doesn’t count,’” she said.

During the poll monitoring session, Emma Olson Sharkey, a partner at the Political Law Group, outlined what poll watchers should look for and what they should do about it.

Their role, she said, is not to engage. They will observe and report any attempt to intimidate voters or poll workers.

The organization provides an online report form to report incidents.

“We hope it is boring,” Payne said. “In most cases, nothing will happen.”

The slate of statewide measures on the Nov. 3 ballot provides voters two opportunities to tax the rich, which in past years has proved tantalizing to California’s left-leaning electorate.

Only one of those measures has strong voter support, however, and it’s not the proposition that’s attracted nationwide attention, ignited a nearly quarter-billion-dollar political slugfest and created a rift among top leaders in the Democratic Party.

Likely voters expressed middling support for Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets intended to compensate for an impending $100 billion in federal healthcare funding cuts. They were far more likely to back Proposition 3, a ballot measure that would make permanent a tax increase on the wealthy that funds schools and healthcare, according to a poll released Friday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that is co-sponsored by The Times.

Proposition 3 appears to be a much less controversial endeavor, which may explain why it has more voter support. The ballot measure would extend a tax enacted in 2012 on individuals who earn at least $360,000 a year that is set to expire in 2031. Proposition 40 proposes a brand-new tax on billionaires and is opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who fears that it could hurt the state’s finances in the long run.

“When you’re going about taxing the billionaires’ assets, I mean that’s something kind of new and different, and it’s risky, and the governor’s against it, and you know a lot of people are expressing caution about it,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll.

Voters are deeply concerned about income disparity but also skeptical about the unusual approach of the billionaire tax.

Proposition 40 has drawn the greatest attention and campaign spending of the 14 ballot measures voters will decide on Nov. 3.

In the poll, 45% of likely voters support the proposal, while 42% oppose it and 13% are undecided. That’s a decline in support compared with six weeks ago, when 48% of likely voters supported it while 41% opposed it, and comes after nearly $100 million of spending on television ads, social media messages and mailers, largely from opponents.

The billionaire tax was crafted by a healthcare union in response to legislation passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump last year that could result in millions of Californians losing Medi-Cal coverage, rural hospitals shuttering and other healthcare services being slashed unless a new funding source is found.

The proposal would retroactively apply to billionaires who lived in California as of Jan. 1, prompting some to preemptively move out of the state. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs, and the remaining funds would be spent on education programs and food assistance.

There are two counterproposals on the ballot that would nullify the wealth tax if either receives more votes than Proposition 40, and they have raised $144 million. Voters are torn about Proposition 41, which would prohibit any new state taxes from being excluded from a voter-approved cap that restricts how much tax revenue the state can spend each year. The billionaire tax would have such an exclusion. Voters also are divided on Proposition 42, which would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of the billionaire tax initiative.

Proposition 42 has greater support, with 43% backing it, 34% opposing it and the remainder undecided, according to the poll. Even more voters were uncertain about Proposition 41: 3 in 10 said they were undecided, while 37% said they supported it and 33% said they planned to vote against it.

The large number of undecided voters this close to the election points to voters being overwhelmed by the sheer number of statewide ballot measures, DiCamillo said.

“It’s confusion,” he said, adding that many voters may make a decision once they receive more ballot information.

That said, the fact that none of these proposals has the support of more than 50% of likely voters doesn’t bode well for their prospects, DiCamillo said.

Ballots will begin arriving in the mailboxes of the state’s 23.2 million voters in days.

Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in California, but the party’s leaders are deeply divided about the billionaire tax, given the volatile state budget’s reliance on the wealthy. Newsom, who is pondering a 2028 presidential campaign, and the two men vying to replace him — Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — oppose it. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a potential 2028 White House contender, supports it, as does the California Democratic Party.

Additionally, Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and architect of the ballot measure, has come under scrutiny. Regan has been accused of threatening and intimidating women who worked for the union’s parent organization, and of physically assaulting one, according to reporting by The Times. He was also accused of trying to extort SEIU’s state council, suggesting that it could face an investigation over “governance issues” if it did not support Proposition 40, according to an investigation commissioned by SEIU.

Regan has denied these claims, describing them as a “smear” campaign orchestrated by Proposition 40 opponents.

Much less attention has been paid to Proposition 3. Californians who earn more than $360,000 now are subject to a 10.3% tax, while those who earn more than $721,000 face a 12.3% levy. The vast majority of the billions raised through this tax go to K-12 schools, while the remainder is spent on community colleges and healthcare.

The other ballot measure that is receiving national attention is Proposition 39, which would require voters to present a government-issued identification document to cast a ballot or provide a PIN or the last four digits of their Social Security number when submitting mail-in ballots.

The measure also would require the California secretary of state and county election officials to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.

The proposal comes as Trump has continued to make claims that elections, notably in California, are being rigged by Democrats. Americans are increasingly alarmed about the security and sanctity of voting, and growing fears about intimidation efforts at polling places in the midterm elections.

Fifty-two percent of likely California voters oppose the voter ID proposal, while 39% support it and 9% are undecided, according to the poll.

“It doesn’t look like it’s in a strong position,” DiCamillo said, noting that while voters have opposed it in prior polls, the opposition has grown.

Nearly one-third of voters were undecided about two other propositions:

• Likely voters were evenly split about Proposition 4, which would repeal a ban on public funding of campaigns, with 35% supporting it and 35% opposing it, and the remainder undecided.
• Four out of 10 likely voters opposed Proposition 43, which would increase the threshold necessary to pass local taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds, while 31% supported measure and 29% were undecided.

Voters will also face questions about environmental policy, housing, recall elections and other matters, as well as statewide, congressional and local elections. Californians are fatigued by the length of the ballot.

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll findings are based on an online survey in English and Spanish of 6,989 registered California voters, 4,512 of whom are considered likely voters, on Sept. 15-20. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of about 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

A stunning new poll showing Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman gaining a double-digit lead over incumbent Karen Bass in the mayor’s race is increasing pressure on Bass and her allies to go sharply negative against her opponent and to seek support from conservative and undecided voters to narrow the gap.

The poll, conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times, showed Bass trailing Raman by 11 percentage points — with 28% of likely voters saying they supported the mayor while 39% said they would vote for Raman. The remaining 33% were undecided, an unusually high number this close to the Nov. 3 election.

“The bottom line is this is a huge shot in the arm politically for Raman — and it’s not a good day for the mayor,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former L.A. City Council member who now runs the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Dan Schnur, a former Republican political consultant, said the poll could have instant negative effects for the mayor’s fundraising ability as potential supporters might now view Raman as the favorite in the race.

“The most immediate tangible result of a poll like this is that Bass’ greatest advantage was her fundraising and it now becomes much more challenging to raise money,” he said.

Bass, appearing Wednesday at a news conference in Hollywood, said she’s seen multiple polls that show a tight race. She said that Raman is “absolutely not” the front-runner in the race.

Mayor Karen Bass speaks at Vermont/Santa Monica Metro Center on Wednesday, touting progress on construction of affordable housing.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The mayor said she is working to highlight the city’s progress in making rent more affordable, pointing to newly released numbers that show that more than 10,000 units of housing with restricted rents have been built since she took office in December 2022.

“The No. 1 issue to Angelenos continues to be lack of affordability, and our primary way of addressing that from the city is housing,” she said. “So we are absolutely addressing affordability.”

Others in the Bass camp seemed more anxious about the poll results.

“It put a pit in stomachs,” said one supporter close to the Bass campaign who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the poll. “But there is still an outside chance for Bass. It’s not total doomsday.”

The supporter said that the Bass campaign truly doesn’t believe Raman’s lead is that big, but that the poll was still “not good news,” especially for fundraising.

Mike Bonin, a progressive former L.A. City Council member who now runs the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State Los Angeles, said Bass needs to focus on winning over voters who chose former reality television personality Spencer Pratt in the primary election in June. Many of those voters are now on the fence.

Pratt received 26% of the vote in the primary, and most of the voters who cast ballots for him — 63% — say they still haven’t decided whom to vote for in the runoff, the poll found. Among the Pratt voters who have decided, 22% favored Bass compared with 16% for Raman.

Bonin said he expects Bass and her allies to attack Raman’s progressive views in order to reach Pratt voters. Raman is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and opposed raises for Los Angeles Police Department officers that had been championed by Bass.

“The nature of the attacks will try to reach the Pratt voters particularly since they are the largest bloc of undecideds and they skew conservative,” Bonin said.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing LAPD officers, is already airing campaign ads critical of Raman over her opposition to a law barring homeless encampments next to schools. In the coming days, the group will also roll out commercials highlighting Raman’s ties to the DSA, which has endorsed her mayoral bid, said union spokesman Tom Saggau.

“Our own poll told us that the Pratt folks were very much undecided, and that when they heard more about Nithya’s record, and her co-governing with DSA, they moved off of her,” he said, adding that his group still views the race as a dead heat.

Raman, not surprisingly, cheered the poll results.

“This poll reflects the momentum we’re seeing on the ground. Angelenos are ready for change and want to see a City That Works,” Raman said in a post on Instagram.

Raman campaign officials said the poll probably will help their fundraising efforts, which they said had already been gaining momentum over the last few weeks. And Schnur, the former GOP political consultant, said the wide lead allows Raman to spend more time touting her own credentials instead of disparaging Bass.

“For the most part Raman has the front-runner’s luxury of putting out a positive message and reinforcing her own credentials,” Schnur said.

Estevan Montemayor, who is running the pro-Raman Estamos con Nithya independent expenditure group, said his group’s role will be to inform voters about Raman’s positives while the Bass campaign attacks.

“They’re gonna come after Nithya and we’re gonna be here to tell her success story,” he said.

Bass supporter Stuart Waldman, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, said the large number of undecided voters this close to the Nov. 3 election is worrying but also leaves an opening for Bass to gain ground.

“Any swing in any direction could make a big change,” Waldman said. “We have no idea who’s going to vote. … Usually by this point in time, everything has tightened up.”

Councilmember Nithya Raman, lower right, campaigns at a Latinos Con Raman rally at La Cita Bar in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In courting those undecided voters, however, Bass is burdened by high unfavorability numbers, according to the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll.

The mayor had 63% unfavorable ratings, the poll found, with 28% favorable and 9% having no opinion. By comparison, 40% had a favorable view of Raman, according to the poll, while 39% said they had an unfavorable view of her and 21% had no opinion.

Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant, said that Bass needs to accept responsibility on core issues upsetting Angelenos about her tenure, such as homelessness and the 2025 Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. In a recent interview with The Times, Bass said her biggest mistake as mayor was being in Ghana when the fire began amid high wind warnings.

“You have to say, ‘I hear you,’” he said. “Voters don’t think Karen gets that they are mad about things that happened during her term.”

Then, Murphy said, he believes Bass needs to attack Raman as being more establishment than Bass.

Murphy noted that Bass has frequently attacked Raman for being “at City Hall longer than I have,” which he called a powerful message to voters who are considering Raman because they want change. Raman was elected in 2020 and Bass in 2022.

Other polls taken in the campaign have shown a closer race than the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll.

In an internal Raman campaign poll from early September, the council member was ahead, 44% to 39%, with 17% undecided. She was also leading, 38% to 32%, in a poll commissioned by the group Streets for All, which is backing Raman.

In an early August poll commissioned by an independent expenditure group supporting Bass, the mayor had the edge, 41% to 35%, with 24% undecided.

Mayor Karen Bass greets community members after speaking at Vermont/Santa Monica Metro Center.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The Bass campaign cited some of those polls when responding to the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll Wednesday, calling it an “outlier poll” and accusing the pollsters of getting it wrong.

“In the primary … they got it wrong and undercounted Karen Bass’ support,” campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said in a news release.

Stack added that polls conducted online, like the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll, “systematically [undercount] working-class families, seniors, and non-English speaking communities who regularly turn out on Election Day.”

Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, defended the methodology, saying he has spent 45 years polling in California and eight years running the Berkeley IGS Poll.

“What would you expect from a campaign down by double digits? They attack the poll,” he said.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is up 2 points, but that’s still within the poll’s margin of error.

⁠Brazilian President ⁠Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has maintained a two-percentage-point lead over Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, ⁠his main challenger, in a potential run-off ahead of October’s presidential election, a Datafolha poll has shown.

In poll results released Thursday, Lula would receive 47 percent of the vote compared with 45 percent for Bolsonaro in a simulated run-off. A previous Datafolha poll last week had ‌Lula leading Bolsonaro by 46 percent to 44 percent.

The result also represents a technical tie as it falls within the poll’s margin of error of 2 percentage points.

In a first-round scenario, Lula leads with ⁠40 percent of the vote, followed ⁠by Bolsonaro (36 percent), Augusto Cury (5 percent), Ronaldo Caiado (4 percent) and Renan Santos (3 percent).

The previous poll showed the leftist president with 39 percent against the ⁠right-wing senator’s 36 percent.

Senator Bolsonaro is the eldest son of ⁠former President Jair Bolsonaro, who ⁠is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 election defeat to Lula.

Lula is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term as Brazil’s president.

If no candidate ‌wins more than 50 percent of valid votes in the first round, the two frontrunners advance ‌to ‌a run-off.

Datafolha surveyed 2,002 people between September 22 and 23.

Earlier this week, two other polls showed similar results.

A Quaest poll released on Monday showed Bolsonaro with 42 percent of voter support in a potential run-off, versus 41 percent for Lula.

Meanwhile, a BTG Pactual/Nexus poll has Lula receiving 46 percent of voter support, compared with 45 percent for Bolsonaro in a potential run-off.

SACRAMENTO — As Californians prepare to elect a new governor in November, the concern they want to be his top priority is reducing the state’s entrenched high cost of living, according to a poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

Not too far behind that is strong voter support for fighting the policies of the Trump administration. That may be among the many reasons 58% of likely voters surveyed support Democrat Xavier Becerra in the governor’s race compared to the 33% who back Republican Steve Hilton, whom the president endorsed.

“These results suggest that Becerra is in a commanding position heading to November,” said IGS co-director Eric Schickler. “With 2026 shaping up to be a strong Democratic year nationally, the headwinds facing Hilton in Democratic-leaning California are even stronger than usual.”

The poll found that Becerra’s lead over Hilton had increased slightly since an August IGS poll, and the Democrat now holds a 25-percentage-point advantage.

Despite an effort to reach out to Democrats and independent voters and making California’s high housing costs, top-in-the-nation gasoline prices and other increasing daily living expenses a central focus of his campaign, Hilton is struggling to gain ground in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, the poll found.

“The difficult thing is that Steve Hilton’s a Republican in California,” said Tim Rosales, a Republican strategist who previously advised GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox in the 2018 race against Newsom. “On the scale of what’s more important to voters, the cost of living certainly is there, but those Democrats really aren’t willing to cast a vote or cross party lines to vote for a Republican.”

Asked to name one or two of their top concerns heading into the Nov. 3 election, 44% of likely voters cited the cost of living, 37% said it was important to push back against policies from the Trump administration and 30% said they wanted to help their political party win or maintain control of Congress.

“The November elections are being held at a time when the economic backdrop is worsening not only in California but across the nation, as prices are rising on most major household purchases, including groceries, gasoline, electricity and healthcare,” said IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo. “Pocketbook issues have traditionally played a big role in election politics and this year is no exception.”

Democrats, who make up nearly half of California’s 23 million registered voters, “understand the cost of living, and they feel it. They just feel like they need a new Democrat to deal with it,” Rosales said.

“Independent voters are a little bit different. They aren’t partisan but they are ideological and there is some opportunity there.” But Hilton would “need a whole lot of them in California in order to have a chance on a statewide level,” he said.

More than half of likely voters not registered with either the Democratic or Republican parties — most of whom declare themselves as “no party preference” — said they supported Becerra in the governor’s race, while 30% favored Hilton. The remaining 14% were undecided.

Hilton has made a slew of campaign promises to lower the cost of living, including $3 gasoline, no taxes on income below $150,000 and lowering energy bills by slashing climate-friendly regulations imposed by Democrats.

Both Rosales and DiCamillo agreed that while voters list affordability as a top issue, Democrats in particular are more motivated by the opportunity to push back on President Trump in the midterm elections.

“When you look at the Becerra voters on the issues or concerns that are important to them, it’s really framed by fighting Trump administration policies. I think that’s an indication of what’s happening in this election cycle,” DiCamillo said. “You’re seeing it across the country as well.”

The poll showed that 59% of Becerra supporters said fighting the Trump administration was a top priority, while 62% of Hilton supporters said reducing taxes was their main concern. More than 60% of undecided voters listed the cost of living as a top item.

Trump, who remains extremely unpopular among most Californians, endorsed Hilton for governor in April. Though the president’s backing helped the former Fox News host consolidate enough Republican support to finish second in the June primary, allowing him to advance to the November election, it may hurt his chance in the general election. A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll showed Trump with a 27% approval rating in the state, a record low across both of his terms.

Hilton has tried to court voters, especially Latinos and independents, who dislike Trump but are also dissatisfied with California’s Democratic leadership and its failure to alleviate some of California’s most incessant problems. The British-born Republican has also declined to criticize the president on issues including immigration enforcement or the Iran war.

Becerra’s wide lead is also boosted by his favorability rating — 48% of likely voters have a favorable opinion of him while 40% view him unfavorably and 11% have no opinion. Hilton’s rating is underwater; 51% of likely voters have an unfavorable opinion compared to 35% favorable and 13% with no opinion.

The Republican has criticized his opponent for doing few public events since the primary election and challenged Becerra to accept debate invitations from roughly a half-dozen news outlets around the state.

The two are scheduled to meet in a Sept. 30 nationally televised debate in Burbank hosted by CNN.

The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish from Sept. 15 to 20. Responses for the governor’s race poll came from a weighted sample of 4,512 respondents considered likely to vote in the November election, from a larger group of 6,989 registered voters throughout California. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction.

Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman has taken a wide lead over incumbent Karen Bass in the L.A. mayor’s race, according to a new poll released Wednesday, although a high percentage of voters remain undecided less than two weeks before mail-in ballots are sent out for the Nov. 3 election.

Raman is favored by 39% of likely L.A. voters, compared with 28% for Bass, according to the poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times. The poll found that 33% of voters were undecided.

“Raman clearly has the advantage. Her task is a little less onerous than Bass’,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS Poll.

Adding to Bass’ low poll numbers are high unfavorability ratings.

The mayor had 63% unfavorable ratings, the poll found, with 28% favorable and 9% having no opinion. By comparison, 40% had a favorable view of Raman, according to the poll, while 39% said they had an unfavorable view of her and 21% had no opinion.

The survey released Wednesday was conducted online with a sample of 2,150 likely city voters between Sept. 15 and Sept. 20. It has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

The poll represented the strongest showing yet for Raman, who trailed Bass in almost every poll during the primary campaign and who came in second to Bass in the primary election, with 29% of the vote compared with Bass’ 34%.

Mayoral candidate and Councilmember Nithya Raman, center, enjoys a light moment with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action members at La Cita Bar in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Even so, DiCamillo said the large number of undecided voters means the race is far from over.

“It’s extraordinarily unusual to see this many undecided voters at this point in the race,” he said. Mail-in ballots will be sent out beginning Oct. 1, local elections officials say.

The large number of undecided voters can be linked to the elimination of mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt in the June 2 primary, according to DiCamillo. The former reality TV star received 26% of the vote in the primary, and most of the voters who cast ballots for him — 63% — say they haven’t decided whom to vote for in the runoff, the poll found.

Among those Pratt voters who have decided, 22% favored Bass compared with 16% for Raman.

One of the most significant findings in the poll was a massive “generational divide” among L.A. voters, DiCamillo said.

Raman, 45, dominated the 72-year-old Bass among younger voters, with 66% of likely voters ages 18 to 29 choosing the council member while just 4% chose Bass, according to the poll.

Raman also had 64% of likely voters ages 30 to 39 compared with Bass’ 12%, and the council member had 50% of likely voters ages 40 to 49 compared with Bass’ 18%. Raman also was leading among voters 50 to 64 years old by a slim margin of 35% to 33%.

Bass, meanwhile, led among the oldest set of voters — those 65 and up — but not by the same margins. Bass had 41% of likely voters in that group compared with Raman’s 21%.

The mayor has had negative favorability ratings since the 2025 Palisades fire.

According to the poll, 56% of likely voters thought Bass did a poor or very poor job responding to the disaster, which killed 12 people and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, including Pratt’s.

Fourteen percent of the likely voters thought Bass had done either an excellent or a good job and 17% thought she had done a fair job.

Mayor Karen Bass campaigns at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park on Sunday.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The most important issues to likely voters were fixing city infrastructure, moving homeless people indoors, crime and public safety, and building more affordable housing, the poll found.

The poll shows Raman leading in nearly every geographic area of the city. Bass was leading in South Los Angeles and the Harbor region, 37% to 34%, but central Los Angeles as well as northeast and the east side of Los Angeles broke strongly for Raman.

The San Fernando Valley went 34% to Raman and 26% to Bass with 40% still undecided. The Westside favored Raman by a single percentage point, at 35% to 34%.

Raman has led in other polls recently, though none by as wide a margin as in the Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll. Shortly before the primary, a separate Berkeley IGS/L.A. Times poll showed Raman leading Bass in a potential head-to-head matchup by just four percentage points, with 32% support compared with the mayor’s 28%.

But the gap between the two has widened since then, the latest poll found, as Bass weathered a difficult news cycle, including rising homelessness numbers citywide as well as the fallout from the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights that burned for nearly a week, leaving rotting food and a rancid stench in the neighborhood for more than a month.

Raman, meanwhile, picked up largely positive headlines this summer. She gained key endorsements from the carpenters’ union and Unite Here Local 11, the union representing hospitality workers at hotels and the airport, as well as an endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America. Street homelessness also dropped in her district, which she said was due to her office’s strong outreach, though the Bass campaign credited the mayor’s Inside Safe program for the reduction in Raman’s district.

On the negative side, Raman was booted from her position in the council as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, a move she said was politically motivated.

In an internal Raman campaign poll from early September, the council member was ahead, 44% to 39%, with 17% undecided. She was also leading, 38% to 32%, in a poll commissioned by the group Streets for All, which is backing Raman.

In an early August poll commissioned by an independent expenditure group supporting Bass, the mayor had the edge, 41% to 35%, with 24% undecided.

Fewer than half of Americans believe the upcoming midterm elections will be “free and fair,” amid a broader decline in confidence in vote counts, according to a new nationwide poll.

While 49% of respondents said they expected the elections to be free and fair, 23% said they did not expect them to be, and 28% said they didn’t know what to expect.

Americans are more confident that ballots, once cast, will be counted accurately, though their trust in that varies depending on their political affiliation — with 63% of Democrats, 58% of Republicans and 49% of independent voters saying they are either “somewhat” or “very” confident in an accurate count, the Center for Transparent and Trusted Elections at UC San Diego poll found.

That is a sharp decline from after the 2024 election, when 77% of Democrats, 82% of Republicans and 73% of independents expressed such confidence, the same pollsters found then.

Lauren Prather, one of the center’s co-directors, said the latest findings reflect a decline in trust but also nuance in how respondents understand what it means to have a “free and fair” election — with an accurate count of cast ballots being a major factor, but not the only one.

Of those respondents who said they don’t know if the election will be free and fair, about a third — 31% — also said that they were “somewhat confident” that the vote would be counted accurately, Prather said.

The poll also asked an open-ended question, inviting respondents to share what a “free and fair” election means to them, she said, and trust in the count was a “central part of people’s definition” and a “dominant theme.” However, they also identified other things, she said — with about a quarter of respondents also pointing to “voter access and voter eligibility, as well as freedom from interference and intimidation and having a real choice of candidates,” Prather said.

“In other words, trust in the count is the anchor of how Americans understand what it means to be free and fair but it sits within a broader set of concerns about the integrity of the whole process,” she said.

The polling reflects an American electorate that has grown increasingly concerned about U.S. elections amid unprecedented claims of widespread voter fraud from President Trump and his administration, and increasing warnings from Democrats and independent election experts that those claims — which Trump has made without evidence and which experts deny — are part of a broader effort to interfere with the election and intimidate voters.

Thad Kousser, the center’s other co-director, said the findings are in line with a broader era of distrust in civic institutions in the U.S., but also a result of the fact that “people are following different signals from their leaders” as to the trustworthiness of U.S. elections — with vastly different messaging coming from leaders on the left and the right.

Poll respondents shared some concerns about the fairness of the November midterms, he said, but also split by wide margins on other concerns based on their political affiliation.

Voters across party lines shared concerns about gerrymandering, the poll found — with 48% of both Democrats and independents and 36% of Republicans saying they distrust that congressional district lines are drawn in a way that fairly reflects what voters want.

“Nobody has loved the redistricting wars that have been a big story throughout this year,” Kousser said.

After Trump urged Texas and other Republican-led states to launch unprecedented mid-decade efforts to redraw their congressional lines to bolster their party’s chances of retaining control of the legislature through the remainder of Trump’s term, Democrats fought back — including in California, where voters passed Proposition 50 to allow state Democrats to redraw congressional lines in their party’s favor.

On potential foreign interference, 32% of Democrats, 42% of independents and 48% of Republicans said they didn’t trust that U.S. elections are well-protected.

More than three-quarters of Americans — including 79% of Democrats, 76% of Republicans and 75% of independents — said they were “concerned that misleading audio or video ‘deepfakes’ created using AI will impact” the midterms.

But on other issues — including those most discussed by the political establishment — the political divide was much starker, the poll found.

For example, while 53% of Republicans said they distrust that ballots are counted accurately, just 19% of Democrats said so. While 52% of Republicans said they distrust that noncitizens are prevented from voting, just 12% of Democrats said so.

Meanwhile, Democrats and independents were more concerned than Republicans about eligible voters being able to cast their ballots without facing obstacles or intimidation, the poll found.

Many poll respondents said they expected to face intimidation from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at or near polling locations — with such fears being particularly pronounced among voters of color, who were about four times as likely as white respondents to say they expected such intimidation, the poll found.

While 49% of Black respondents, 45% of “Hispanic” respondents and 40% of Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents said they expected to face intimidation, just 11% of white respondents said so, the poll found.

Overall, 35% of respondents said an ICE presence would make them less confident of an accurate vote count, compared with 23% who said it would make them more confident. Those responses also varied greatly by race — and partisan leaning.

White respondents were nearly split, with 29% saying it would make them less confident and 28% saying it would make them more confident. Respondents of other races were vastly more likely to say an ICE presence would make them less confident — with 38% of Black respondents saying they would be less confident and 10% saying they would be more confident; 43% of “Hispanic” respondents saying less and 18% saying more; and 57% of AAPI respondents saying less and just 6% saying more.

Nearly 60% of Democrats said an ICE presence would lower their confidence, and less than 8% said it would increase their confidence. Among Republicans, meanwhile, about 46% said it would increase their confidence, and less than 9% said it would decrease it.

Kousser said the polling gives the sense that a “free and fair” election “means something more to people than simply tallying up correctly the votes of those who were able to cast a ballot.”

“You might doubt that the election was free and fair if you are concerned that congressional districts are gerrymanders, or that some voters stayed away from the polls because of worries about intimidation, or that some people cast a ballot who were not, in fact, eligible,” he said. “These concerns, which can come from all different parts of the ideological spectrum, could lead people to be concerned that [a] ‘correctly counted’ election was not, in fact, fully free and fair.”

Kousser and Prather said what effect diminished trust in elections will have on the midterms and how Americans view the results remains unclear, but will depend in part on how close the election is and what messaging leaders — particularly Trump — share about the results once they come in. Prather said she did not expect it to diminish turnout.

The national survey of 5,016 American adults was conducted Sept. 1-9, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4%.