The two candidates for Los Angeles mayor, incumbent Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman, traded sharp jabs Wednesday night over homelessness, housing and police hiring in the first debate of the general election season.
The debate, hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, came as both campaigns began ramping up door-to-door canvassing in a race that’s expected to be close.
Bass, who was elected mayor in 2022, finished five points ahead of Raman in June but is considered vulnerable with unfavorable ratings at 57% in a poll taken before the primary.
Homelessness
During the debate, Raman, who represents Council District 4, said Bass had not made enough progress on the No. 1 issue facing Los Angeles: homelessness.
“You’ve been the mayor for four years and the results have not changed — the results are visible on our streets,” Raman said.
The latest homeless count showed unsheltered homelessness rose 8% from January 2025 to January 2026. The increase followed a two-year drop of 17.5%.
Bass countered that her Inside Safe program has brought thousands of people off of the streets and pointed out that Raman was head of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee until recently and therefore shared responsibility for the city’s progress on the issue.
“She has been the point person for homelessness — a very powerful position that she declared as powerful when she lost it,” Bass said.
Raman touted a 49% drop in unsheltered homelessness in her council district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks.
Bass claimed Inside Safe was largely responsible for the drop.
If elected, Raman promised to conduct an audit of homelessness spending in her first six months of office and said she would fully staff a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight to hold the city accountable for its spending on the issue.
Auditors have also flagged major problems with the handling of tax dollars by the regional L.A. Homeless Services Authority. The failures stem from poor bookkeeping and accounting of taxpayer money at the agency, which spent over $800 million in public funds last fiscal year.
Raman also promised to lobby L.A. County more forcefully than Bass for mental health, drug abuse and other social services for the unhoused.
Housing
The two also sparred over housing policy, with Raman saying the city needed more density in housing to address a severe shortage.
“This is a massive problem for the future of Los Angeles,” Raman said. “Let’s have a Planning Department that does the work to build these units, zone for these units.”
Raman said the city is “not zoned for more housing,” adding that’s why the state has stepped in with mandates for more dense housing in cities and counties across California.
Raman supported the law.
Bass opposed it.
“I do not support Sacramento telling us what to do,” Bass said. “The best way to build is to reach agreement with communities.”
Bass has billed herself as someone who would do more to preserve residential neighborhoods in the city and protect them from density. She added that 42,000 units of affordable housing were in the pipeline.
Policing
The two also tangled over the hiring of police officers.
Bass pointed to a 2020 social media post by Raman that declared “defund the police.”
“She’s irresponsible in what she talks about,” Bass said.
Raman returned the verbal jab, arguing that Bass was irresponsible for backing a big raise for police officers in 2023.
“This is about fiscal management of public tax dollars,” Raman said. "This contract gave raises to the [Police Department] that our city couldn't afford and we suffered as a result.
”We cut street lighting, we cut pothole repair — we have more potholes on our streets than we did before," she continued. “We do less graffiti removal than we did before.”
Bass has said the raises were necessary to recruit new officers and keep current officers from leaving the department.
Raman also criticized Police Chief Jim McDonnell’s response to federal immigration raids, noting he refused to enforce a state law that largely prohibited federal agents from wearing masks. The council member said she didn’t believe the chief’s response to ICE raids “met the moment,” stopping short of saying whether she would seek to remove him.
Supporting business
Bass and Raman also fought over whether the city had sufficiently supported the entertainment industry.
“We need a tax credit and advocacy in Sacramento for the kind of tax credit that Georgia has, that’s the same as New Jersey has that’s taking jobs away from here,” Raman said.
Bass said she appointed a film czar to fight for such policies and criticized Raman for doing nothing on the issue.
“You have been on the City Council for six years,” Bass said. “You’ve been at City Hall twice as long as I have. I realize you want to pitch yourself as somebody from the outside. But where were you? You’ve introduced no motion for the entertainment industry.”
Bass said Raman would not be a good mayor because she lacks support from any of her colleagues on the City Council.
“She has no support from the council members because nobody can work with her,” Bass said.
Raman said she works well with colleagues and that Bass had locked up their endorsements before she made her last-minute entry into the race.
