President Joe Biden’s preferred candidate for Los Angeles mayor could lose the race to a political newcomer and former Republican as voters unnerved by a surge in homelessness and violent crime turn away from the city’s longtime Democratic leadership.
Developer Rick Caruso’s aggressive ground game has propelled him to within striking distance of his opponent, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), who is on the defense as Democrats come under fire for their failure to wrest control of the problems plaguing the city.
“These are liberals who are exhausted by homelessness and frightened of violent crime, so Caruso is getting a much longer look than he would under other circumstances,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Pepperdine University, and the University of Southern California and veteran of gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. “This is a city that’s so overwhelmed that they are willing to consider other alternatives.”
BIDEN HAS DEMOCRATS ‘SLAMMING THEIR HEADS ON A CEILING’ IN SEARCH OF VOTES
That voters in one of the most liberal cities in the country are turning out to vote on crime marks a concerning trend for the president’s party, with similar dynamics playing out in Democratic strongholds across the country.
The turn has propelled Caruso to a statistical tie against Bass, who appeared to have locked up the race weeks ago. Appearing alongside the congresswoman last month, Biden awarded Bass the moniker of “soon-to-be Ms. Mayor.”
Bass entered October with a 3 percentage-point lead against Caruso among registered voters, down from a 12-point advantage in August, according to a Los Angeles Times/UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll. Among registered Democrats, Bass was up by 40 points.
By mid-October, Caruso had erased this lead, according to a poll from the South California News Group.
Caruso has spent lavishly in a bid to shift the contours of the race, reprising an effort that helped propel him in the June primary when a flood of advertising pushed the billionaire within striking distance of Bass, forcing her into a November runoff.
At more than $81 million, Caruso’s total dwarfs Bass’s $11 million spend, according to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, and has fueled a potent door-knocking effort.
Turning out low-propensity voters, particularly Latinos and Asian Pacific voters, which surveys show aligning with Caruso, could help tilt the balance on Election Day, Schnur said. He called a Caruso victory “entirely possible.”
A Caruso aide characterized the candidates as neck and neck based on recent polling.
“However you want to look at the race, [it] has tightened dramatically and is now a dead heat,” Peter Ragone told the Washington Examiner during the countdown.
Animating the turn is Caruso’s strong pitch to clean up the city and stop crime, Schnur said.
On issues of homelessness and poverty, crime and public safety, and the economy, Caruso is slightly ahead, according to the South California News Group poll, though his lead fell within the poll’s margin of error.
Bass acknowledged the scale of the problem in an interview with CNN, calling homelessness in Los Angeles a “humanitarian crisis” and vowing to boost a police presence where warranted.
But she said Caruso had overpromised.
“If we were to hire 1,500 police officers, the city would go bankrupt,” Bass said. “That’s disingenuous, and it’s just a way of conning people.”
Whether this is enough to slow the tide isn’t clear.
Crime has become a top issue in the midterm elections and was brought into relief last week when a homeless assailant violently attacked the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after breaking into her San Francisco home.
Meanwhile, Bass has struggled to isolate Caruso over his past political affiliation and donations to candidates who opposed abortion despite a proposition on the ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the California Constitution. Recent polls show the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal losing traction as voters worry about rising prices and their personal safety, which national Democrats have been slow to address.
Meanwhile, Caruso had a long lead in hammering the issues that now appear most salient. Taking the fight to Bass on the debate stage in September, Caruso depicted his opponent as a member of the political establishment that allowed the crisis to metastasize.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
A former California Assembly speaker, Bass was endorsed this summer by top establishment figures, including Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as many in the California political delegation.
In a sign of the president’s challenges, however, Biden is not expected to appear with Bass during a return trip to Southern California on Thursday.
