raman

With little more than a week left until primary voters winnow the candidates for Los Angeles mayor, California governor and Congress, there remains a palpable sense of political uncertainty among the electorate — attributable to a lack of clear front-runners, redrawn political maps, messy party infighting and competing voter frustration with both President Trump and the state’s Democratic establishment.

In a state where Democrats hold a substantial advantage among registered voters and Trump lost in 2024 by more than 20 percentage points, MAGA-aligned Republicans are nonetheless competing on a message of ineptitude from longtime liberal leaders to address the state’s most intractable problems. Even some Democrats have railed against the status quo.

With Trump’s grip on the Republican base intact despite abysmal overall approval ratings, many Republican candidates have courted his approval — and been hammered for it by their Democratic opponents.

But those same Democrats have found it harder to explain why their own party should continue to lead the state despite allowing its affordability, housing and homelessness crises to take root and persist — taking little responsibility while swiping at each other for having failed to find solutions sooner.

All that party infighting — present before every primary, but at a fever pitch now — comes against a backdrop of broader voter unease about the war in Iran, volatile oil and gas prices, and the burgeoning threat of AI to the American workforce.

Republican voters are being warned of a blue wave in November giving Democrats control of Congress and grinding Trump’s agenda to a halt. Democratic voters are being warned of Trump administration efforts to undermine local and state elections, and of control of Congress unfairly slipping from reach thanks to further Republican redistricting following a U.S. Supreme Court decision undermining the Voting Rights Act and its protections for majority-Black districts across the South.

Many California voters — some already shaken or burned by former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropping from the gubernatorial race amid sexual assault and rape allegations last month — appear hesitant to cast ballots early, despite warnings that the Trump administration may try to discount those mailed at the last minute.

“Voters don’t want to make a mistake. They’re not absolutely certain,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California. “It’s just not real clear where to land.”

James Adams, a political science professor at UC Davis who studies elections and public opinion, said California Democrats this cycle “have a candidate problem and they have a message problem,” in that they are trying to convince voters to back them “not because they offer exciting ideas or inspiring leadership, but because their Republican opponents are even worse.”

And that message — offered as they gerrymander California in a race to the bottom with Republicans nationally — isn’t cutting it, Adams said.

“People are alienated from our current politics not because Americans are cynical, but because people recognize that they deserve better.”

Outsider shakes up L.A. mayor’s race

Amid entrenched homelessness, affordability concerns and lingering anger over the bungled response to last year’s wildfires, the L.A. mayor’s race was “supposed to be a referendum” on embattled Mayor Karen Bass, Stutzman said.

And yet, Bass remains in the lead, and many voters remain confused about which way to turn away from her — if at all.

Bass has won the endorsement of three council members who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, despite City Councilmember Nithya Raman, an ally who’d previously endorsed Bass and is a member of the DSA herself, entering the race to her left.

Unable to consolidate support from the city’s progressive flank, Raman is now running neck and neck for a second-place finish and a chance to face Bass in the November runoff with former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, who has remained in contention in ultra-liberal L.A. despite pushing a MAGA-aligned message to Bass’ right.

Pratt, who did not respond to a request for comment, lost his Pacific Palisades home in the fires and has won over many frustrated city residents with his anti-establishment message and cheeky AI videos — including one casting him as Batman, taking on a corrupt Democratic bourgeoisie.

Pratt, a registered Republican, has tried to dance around politics in the race, calling his campaign a “nonpartisan” one and comparing himself to President Obama politically. But he is backed by many Republicans, has echoed Trump’s rhetoric around restoring “common sense” and a “Golden Age” to L.A., and recently responded to Trump saying that he’d heard Pratt “is a big MAGA person” — and Raman posting the quote to X — with a meme of himself shrugging.

Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said he’s glad city voters have choices this race, because they clearly aren’t happy. He said Angelenos are less optimistic today than ever before and are deeply frustrated with “this same liberal Democratic regime from Bradley to Bass over 50 years” — a reference to former Mayor Tom Bradley, who first took office in 1973.

Voters are clearly tired of that regime, which has succumbed to “policy paralysis” in the name of “inclusion” and trying to please everyone, Guerra said — but not so much that they will consider going MAGA for Pratt.

“People say, ‘Yeah, Democrats have really f—d it up, but there’s no way we’re going to [back] Republicans. Look what they’ve done to the nation.’”

Others aren’t so sure. In its voter guide, the progressive group LA Forward wrote that the “most important thing” in the June 2 primary is to block Pratt — whom it called a “right-wing reality TV buffoon” — from advancing, and the best way to do so is to vote for Raman.

“We would much rather see a Bass/Raman runoff, with no chance of Pratt becoming mayor, than a Pratt/Bass runoff where a Pratt win would be a real possibility — plunging LA into a Trumpian mayoral nightmare,” the group wrote.

An unsettled gubernatorial contest

In the gubernatorial race, none of the many Democratic candidates has been able to consolidate a sizable lead, creating a lingering apprehension that Republicans could somehow eke out a stunning upset in the biggest of blue states.

That’s in part thanks to leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, the former California attorney general and U.S. Health secretary under President Biden, being dogged by insinuations, including from fellow Democrats, that he was somehow complicit in a scheme by underlings to steal from his campaign coffers, despite prosecutors in the case — which resulted in his former chief of staff pleading guilty — never alleging wrongdoing on his part.

It’s also thanks in part to the fact that the leading progressive, Tom Steyer, is a billionaire who has bought his way into contention with nearly $200 million of his own money — in an election cycle in which progressive voters nationwide are decrying billionaires as the clearest symbol of all that is wrong with the nation’s lopsided economy.

“This kind of weird self-loathing rationale of why he’s the right guy to take on billionaires because he is one? You can’t build a Mamdani movement around that,” said Stutzman, referring to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who shot to power on a democratic socialist platform last year.

The Democrats have also struggled to combat the criticism — leveraged time and again by their Republican competitors — that their party has failed for years to solve California’s most substantial problems, and deserves to be ousted from power.

Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra speak during a break in the April 28 gubernatorial debate.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton has hammered that message in ads and on the debate stage, lambasting the Democratic establishment for pushing so much unnecessary regulation that it has chased out business and investment and made everything from gas to housing to groceries more expensive for average residents.

He has blamed Democrats for California’s high rates of poverty and unemployment, its high cost of living and high taxes, its record homelessness and its poor public school results.

In an interview, Hilton said he understands that California voters may not like Trump — who endorsed him — and may have conflicting beliefs about federal and international policy, but that California’s biggest problems have “nothing to do with President Trump.”

“Voters need to decide on what direction they want to take in terms of the policies that affect their daily lives in California,” he said, and those are “devised and enacted within California by our politicians here in Sacramento.”

He also said it’s no surprise that some of his Democratic rivals have also acknowledged that the Democratic establishment has been a failure, because “if you pretend otherwise, you show that you’re just completely out of touch with public opinion.”

Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said “every campaign is entitled to run the race that they believe matches their story,” even if that means questioning the party’s past performance. But he also said polling hasn’t shown that message to be an effective one, and he’s confident that voters will show their ongoing trust in the party at the polls.

Redistricting, sniping and name-calling

The decision by California voters last November to pass Proposition 50 and allow the state’s Democratic leaders to redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democratic candidates in a handful of additional districts — part of a wider redistricting war sparked by Trump — has intensified the primary races in those areas.

As an example, longtime incumbent Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) are now competing to represent the same redrawn swath of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and have bitterly attacked one another. Kim has called Calvert a “swampy,” “sleazy” and “corrupt” politician guilty of “sabotaging President Trump’s agenda.” Calvert has called Kim a “RINO,” or Republican In Name Only, and a “Trump-hating liberal.”

Democrats have also sniped at each other, including in the race to replace retiring Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) in his redrawn district in San Diego and Riverside counties — where Trump also holds an outsize presence.

Rep. Young Kim and Rep. Ken Calvert are opponents in a heated race in a newly redrawn congressional district.

(Associated Press)

Stutzman said it will be interesting to see how those primaries play out, but also how Democrats there and in other races perform in November — when Democrats are expected to perform well nationally given Trump’s lousy ratings, but Democrats in California could underperform thanks to statewide frustration with affordability, housing and homelessness here.

“People are like, ‘Eh, you know, yeah, Trump — but there’s some problems here,’” Stutzman said.

Hicks said he expects California voters to not only elect another Democratic governor, but to “push back on a Trump administration and congressional Republicans and Republicans around the country that have sought to rig the game in their favor,” including by “ensuring that we fulfill the promise of Proposition 50 by winning congressional seats and retaking the House of Representatives.”

He said the current political moment “can feel like a pressure cooker,” but Californians will “continue to adapt and overcome and be resilient, just as they always have been.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.

“Studio lots like this one used to be filled with people, costumers, electricians, set medics, caterers, thousands of Angelenos making a living,” she says in the video posted on social media. “Now these lots are quiet. Since 2018, shooting days in the city have fallen by half.”

After telling voters this issue is “personal” (her husband is a TV writer and producer), criticizing Mayor Karen Bass’ leadership on the matter and outlining her own plans, Raman proclaims, “I’m running for mayor to make sure Los Angeles stays the film and TV capital of the world.”

Placing the concerns of the entertainment industry at the center of the city’s mayoral race would have been unthinkable even in the last election cycle. But the production crisis, which has rocked Hollywood and pummeled its workforce, has reached a critical juncture. The state of L.A.’s signature industry is now a political flashpoint alongside affordability, crime and homelessness in the upcoming election.

A person films an interaction between mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt and another person on his cellphone during a “Community Meet and Greet” event out of a house for sale on Long Ridge Avenue in a residential neighborhood of Sherman Oaks on Saturday.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

In campaign ads, interviews and the recent televised debate, the top three contenders: incumbent Mayor Bass, former reality TV villain Spencer Pratt and Raman, have made the ongoing production slump a pivotal topic, highlighting their plans to revitalize the industry while deploying the issue to undercut one another.

For decades, elected officials have not had to focus on the film and TV business, let alone turn it into a campaign issue. It was simply a given that local production would continue to play a dominant role in the city’s economy as it has for more than a century.

But the cumulative effects of consolidation, runaway production to tax-friendly states and countries and the end of the streaming boom has caused Los Angeles to lose billions in economic activity, shed some 57,000 jobs over the last four years and led to the closing of more than 80 film and television production service businesses across the city since 2022.

“For us, ‘save Hollywood’ is more than a slogan and more than headline. It is what needs to be done,” said Pamala Buzick Kim, one of the co-founders of Stay in LA, a grassroots campaign aimed at increasing film and television production in Los Angeles.

To be sure, the biggest driver of where studios and producers film are state and federal tax credits, over which the city has no control.

But Buzick Kim and others argue that “there is lots the mayor can do, hand-in-hand with the City Council.”

Mayor Karen Bass, center, walks with Avance Democratic Club President Nilza Serrano, to the right of Bass, during Avance’s politics and tacos event at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Los Angeles on Saturday.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

For starters, say filmmakers and advocates, much can be done to tackle the city’s sclerotic bureaucracy, onerous regulations and a slow and costly permitting process that has pushed filmmakers to flee to friendlier and cheaper locales.

While steps have been put in place recently, including a pilot program offering reduced-cost filming permits for shoots that demonstrate a “low impact” to the surrounding community, many complain such steps have come too little and too late.

Scott Niner, president and owner of Dangling Carrot Creative, checks on woodwork being produced at his shop in North Hollywood.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

“The industry is in collapse and people have been talking about fixing things for years, but all we get are incremental little changes,” said Ed Lippman, a location manager of 34 years who lives in Sherman Oaks and has worked on such shows as “ER” and “The X-Files” and movies including “Galaxy Quest.” “And if the city is not being business-friendly, the business will go elsewhere.”

Compounding the problem, the Los Angeles area has more than 100 jurisdictions, many of which have their own set of rules and regulations regarding filming.

“There needs to be universal standards,” said Travis Beck, a location manager for commercials, small films and music videos. “Burbank is different from Glendale, which is different from Pasadena.”

The recent kerfuffle over filming “Baywatch,” the lifeguard reboot at Venice Beach, underscored both the efforts to bring production back to L.A. — enticed by a $21-million tax credit — and the complex, baffling red tape required to film here.

When shooting began in March, the production encountered a number of hiccups, including that it needed nearly double the parking space it had received a permit for, which was not part of the original approvals.

An anonymous crew member claimed on Facebook that government restrictions had forced production to relocate from Venice Beach. Production staff denied they had relocated. However, the incident prompted a backlash, becoming a rallying cry over L.A.’s burdensome filming bureaucracy.

The “Baywatch” team quickly met with city and county officials and resolved the issue, securing an agreement for a 20% parking discount from the city, and the mayoral candidates used it as an opportunity to score political points.

Pratt slammed the city’s permitting problems.

“LA turned its back on Hollywood — now the golden goose needs CPR,” he wrote on his Substack.

Bass highlighted her administration’s leadership on the matter.

“The City of Los Angeles will always clear bureaucratic barriers, making it easier and more affordable to film in the entertainment capital of the world,” she wrote on X last month.

On April 21, the mayor unveiled programs to offer productions 20% discounts on city-owned parking lots and other equipment, reduced filming fees at places like the Griffith Observatory and reopened the Central Library for filming. Last August, she appointed Steve Kang, president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, as the city’s film liaison.

Raman has pledged her support for expanding the state’s $750-million tax incentive program, streamlining permitting and lowering fees and eliminating those for small productions. She has also said she will establish a dedicated city film office with a liaison who understands production.

Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman speaks to a crowd at the “Families for Nithya” event at Vineyard Recreation Center in Los Angeles on Saturday.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“Los Angeles is losing Hollywood,” Raman said in a statement. “Not because productions want to leave, but because we’ve made it too hard for them to stay.”

On his Substack and various podcast interviews, Pratt has promised to slash location fees in half, speed up permit approvals, reduce on-set city staff for the majority of productions and waive all fees for shoots with budgets under $2 million.

All three candidates have attacked one another over their approach to Hollywood.

Pratt and Raman have said Bass moved too slowly to address spiraling production and retain film jobs, saying she enacted measures only recently as the mayoral race was heating up.

Speaking on the Monks & Merrill podcast, Pratt criticized Bass’ moves to cut costs to film at the Griffith Observatory, saying, “Who needs that shot right now with the homeless poop all around it?”

The incumbent mayor has defended her administration’s record with the entertainment industry.

Bass and Pratt have taken Raman to task, calling her out for what they say is her lack of advocacy during her time on the City Council.

“She feels very strongly about it. But never offered one motion on the industry, and when motions came up on the industry she either recused herself, or got up and walked out,” said Bass during a debate this month.

Citing a potential conflict of interest over her husband’s work in television, Raman refrained from voting on several motions related to Hollywood.

Many working in the industry would like to see full-throttled support coming from the mayor’s office that will get results. They note how New York City has successfully promoted itself as a leading film destination over the years. (Kang, the city’s chief film liaison, said the city is working on a similar marketing campaign to promote filming that will launch by early fall.)

“For all the talk about, ‘We need to support and bring back filming,’ if they just did basics like lowering the fees and simplifying the process … that would actually help people and get things produced,” said Chris Fuentes, 66, who worked for 30 years as a location manager until he retired last year.

“We’ve heard a lot of great things, but not all things are possible in the mayor’s remit,” said Buzick Kim, noting that tax incentives are a state and federal issue.

Still, she said, “the mayor must understand that Hollywood needs to be made a priority and to find and create inspired thinking to make things easier and cheaper.”

Kang agrees, but says there are limits to what the mayor can achieve.

“We definitely can do a lot to really open up the entertainment industry, but at the same time, we recognize the larger impact needs to come from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., because L.A. just does not have the resources to compete with other jurisdictions in providing millions of dollars in tax incentives,” he said.

For most working in the industry, they just want city leadership that will execute on more than just talking points.

“This is the birthplace of cinema,” Beck said. “It shouldn’t be so hard to film here.”

The roster of campaign contributors to Los Angeles mayoral candidates has something in common with the courtside seats at Lakers games: Both are sprinkled with the rich and famous.

There’s Colin Jost, “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update host, popping up as a donor to Councilmember Nithya Raman. Mayor Karen Bass, meanwhile, counts former Major League Baseball star Dave Winfield among her contributors.

Lakers governor and part-owner Jeanie Buss is there too, as a donor to reality TV personality Spencer Pratt. All three gave the maximum $1,800 contributions to their chosen candidates.

With Los Angeles at the center of the entertainment industry, big names like Jost, Winfield and Buss (none of whom responded to requests for comment) are par for the course in local elections. There might have been even more celebrity contributions were it not for the late-breaking entries of Pratt and Raman in the race, said political consultant Mike Trujillo.

“It’s a very short timeline that is not usual for a mayor’s race where you’re challenging an incumbent,” said Trujillo, who isn’t affiliated with any of the mayoral campaigns. “It takes a while to get these celebrities.”

Trujillo said he expects more big names will contribute if no candidate wins a majority in the June 2 primary, which would trigger a runoff in the Nov. 3 general election.

In 2022, “E.T.” director Steven Spielberg gave $1,500 to Bass’ first campaign for mayor as well as $125,000 to the independent expenditure group “Communities United for Bass for LA Mayor 2022.” J.J. Abrams, the director of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” also gave $125,000 to the group.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the co-founder of DreamWorks Animation, gave nearly $2 million to the pro-Bass group.

Winfield and Buss weren’t the only names associated with the sports world to wade into the mayoral maelstrom.

Brian McCourt, son of former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, contributed the maximum $1,800 to Bass’ reelection campaign. He is the president of the McCourt Foundation, which runs the Los Angeles Marathon.

Magic Johnson’s son, Andre Johnson, who now runs Magic Johnson Enterprises, also gave the maximum to Bass.

Bass also collected donations from “Grey’s Anatomy” actor James Pickens Jr. and from Pauletta Washington, Denzel Washington’s wife. In 2025, Bass received $1,800 from Edythe Broad, the widow of billionaire developer Eli Broad and co-founder of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Raman received dozens of contributions from successful Hollywood writers, producers and directors. She is married to Vali Chandrasekaran, a writer for hit TV shows including “30 Rock” and “Modern Family.” She took in maximum contributions from stand-up comedian Adam Conover as well as musician Joanna Newsom, the wife of Andy Samberg.

The most recent campaign contribution reports showed Pratt raising nearly $540,000 since Jan. 1, more than any other candidate. About $131,000 of his contributions were in so-called un-itemized contributions of under $100, significantly more than any other candidate.

Among the itemized contributions, Pratt reported getting $1,800 from Rick Salomon, the professional poker player who is known for a 2004 sex tape with Paris Hilton. Salomon’s daughter Tyson Salomon, a social media influencer, gave $1,250 to Pratt.

Two other mayoral candidates, tech entrepreneur Adam Miller and community organizer Rae Huang, also raised more than $200,000 each, though there were fewer household names in their contributions

Miller loaned his own campaign $2.5 million.