Karen Bass and Rick Caruso are in a close battle to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, as voters proved highly divided over who is best equipped to tackle the city’s homelessness crisis.
Early returns showed that the vote was almost evenly split, with Caruso winning 50.3% and Bass taking 49.7%. The vote counting process will not be complete until Tuesday night. A winner may not be determined for some time.
Caruso led Bass by a single digit in the June primary. But, Bass would surpass him over the next several days as ballots were tallied.
Six-term South L.A. congresswoman Bass held a narrow advantage over Caruso In the most recent Los Angeles Times poll. However, Caruso was showing significant gains among undecided voter in the final weeks of the race.
Bass positioned herself to be the only pro-choice Democrat running, noting Caruso’s only joining the Democratic Party a month prior to her entry into the race.
Caruso, however, claimed that Bass was the embodiment of the “status quo,” and that he had an outsider’s vision and ability to address homelessness. Both are in the running to succeed Eric Garcetti. Garcetti is leaving L.A. to become the U.S. ambassador for India.
According to the L.A. Times poll 40% of voters believed Caruso would do better at handling homelessness than Bass (31%). On the subject of crime, Caruso held an advantage of 41%-28%.
Overall, Bass was more favorable than Caruso with 50% having a positive opinion of her and 35% having a negative. Caruso was seen to be more divisive with 43% having an optimistic opinion and 42% having negative opinions.
This race has divided Hollywood. Jeffrey Katzenberg, a mogul, donated $1.85million to a committee that supported Bass. J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg supported her, as did Rosario Dawson, Shonda Rhimes and Rosario Dawson. Caruso, meanwhile, got the backing of Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, CAA honcho Bryan Lourd, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry and, notable, Katzenberg’s former DreamWorks SKG partner, David Geffen.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva was up against Robert Luna in a tight race for re-election. Luna is the former chief of Long Beach Police Department. Villanueva was in office for four years and has been controversial. He clashed with the entire county Board of Supervisors, launched investigations into that board, which critics claimed were politically motivated, and even resigned.
Villanueva was in the trailing end of early returns, between 60% and 40%.
(Pictured: Karen Bass, Rick Caruso)