{"id":104,"date":"2026-05-07T08:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T08:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=104"},"modified":"2026-05-07T08:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T08:30:08","slug":"two-winners-one-loser-in-l-a-mayors-debate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"Two winners, one loser in L.A. mayor\u2019s debate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Karen Bass, Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman each came into tonight\u2019s mayoral debate with goals for what may be their only time together on stage.<\/p>\n

Read more Push to oust L.A. city attorney grows as challenger gains support of D.A., police union<\/a><\/p>\n

As the incumbent mayor, Bass had to weather blows from her challengers while trying to sell voters on her fitness for another term, despite a disastrous 2025.<\/p>\n

As a reality TV star with no political experience, Pratt needed to show that he could offer substance instead of just AI fanboy videos and the name-calling \u2014 \u201cKaren Basura\u201d \u2014 he has indulged in on social media. <\/p>\n

Raman\u2019s task was perhaps the hardest. As a City Council member whose two previous campaigns were backed by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, she needed to convince Pratt-curious voters that she\u2019s more conservative than Bass. Yet for others, she needed to appear liberal enough to peel away support from the mayor and come out as a progressive lioness to excite Democrats in a year when GOP candidates like Pratt have to answer for the disaster that is President Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Only one of the three failed.<\/p>\n

At times, Raman was tongue-tied trying to answer simple questions. Moderators kept telling her she was going over her time. Answering a yes\/no question about whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in city elections, the council member went on and on, until the moderator cut her off.<\/p>\n

While Raman offered some policy plans, she also played a card straight out of Trump\u2019s arsenal. She claimed that Pratt and Bass were teaming up against her \u2014 an unlikely scenario that drew laughs from the audience. She got more and more frustrated, to the point that when Bass was allowed time for a rebuttal, she dejectedly proclaimed, \u201cI haven\u2019t been offered that in a lot of this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raman, who had endorsed Bass\u2019 reelection before throwing her hat in at the last minute, came off as inexperienced, touchy and unprepared. <\/p>\n

The line of the night was Pratt dismissing Raman as a \u201crandom council member\u201d \u2014 which is how the L.A. political world responded to her entry into the race. She was so upset about Pratt\u2019s remark that she continued to whine about it to a KNBC reporter after the debate.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s shocking about Raman\u2019s flop is that she should know how important it is to project well to a television audience, given that her husband is a screenwriter. Her tone was flat, when she needed to be passionate.<\/p>\n

Read more Election officials urge early mail-in voting, warn about \u2018misinformation\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

No one had to remind Pratt of that. He was parrying tough questions on a big stage for the first time, facing an audience who knew him only as the Angry L.A. White Guy he has reveled in playing.<\/p>\n

He mostly succeeded.<\/p>\n

At his best, Pratt came off as a boisterous bro with enough charm to call himself \u201chumble\u201d without coming off as obnoxious. He dominated the flow of conversation without coming off as commandeering, even interrupting Raman at times to let Bass speak. At one point, he even said \u201cSorry\u201d when he had taken up too much time and the moderators cut him off.<\/p>\n

He was light on specifics, other than saying he was going to do better than the others and that he would prioritize public safety above all. Instead, he was the one person on stage who used anecdotes to sell himself, citing conversations about abused animals, downtown workers too afraid to eat outside and film producers hiring local gang members to keep their shoots safe. <\/p>\n

As a TV personality-turned-influencer, Pratt knows that storytelling is far more effective than drowning the audience in statistics, as Bass and Raman did.<\/p>\n

But the bad Pratt flared up at times. He earned a reprimand from KNBC anchor and debate co-moderator Colleen Williams when he called the mayor an \u201cincredible liar.\u201d Effecting high-pitched voices to mock Bass and Raman came off as juvenile and possibly sexist. And when it came to last summer\u2019s federal immigration raids that terrorized Southern California, Pratt appeared flummoxed when Bass pointed out that 70% of those arrested didn\u2019t have criminal records \u2014 a use of stats that hit.<\/p>\n

Bass was also who she had to be \u2014 measured, forceful and raring to defend her record, without coming off as defensive. She wasn\u2019t exactly inspirational, but she didn\u2019t have to be. The city\u2019s powerful labor unions have backed her, along with much of the Democratic establishment. <\/p>\n

Raman and Pratt are right in deeming Bass the old guard of a beat-up city \u2014 but the old guard didn\u2019t get there without knowing how to win.<\/p>\n

Read more California county discovers trove of unopened ballots from last election in a locked box<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s shocking about Nithya Raman\u2019s flop is that she should know how important it is to project well to a television audience, given that her husband is a screenwriter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo winners, one loser in L.A. mayor\u2019s debate - California Relocation Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=104\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two winners, one loser in L.A. mayor\u2019s debate - 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