LA Podcast - Poll Yourselves Together

Mike, David, and Liz weigh the progressive divide in the last days of the mayor’s race, the latest polls which show a Karen Bass-Nithya Raman-Spencer Pratt dead heat, and the AI-assisted rise of Pratt. Plus, some reforms are on the way for Measure ULA and voters are being asked to tax themselves with Measure ER to stop catastrophic cuts to the County's healthcare system.

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SHOW NOTES

In the final days of the mayoral primary, a new LA Times poll shows a tight three-way race between Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman, and Spencer Pratt. Meanwhile, the CA Post poll shows Pratt in the lead

Many lefty voters are wrestling up to the last minute with a decision over voting for Raman or Haung. Huang has been sharply critical of Raman and publicly rebuffed overtures from the Raman camp

Meanwhile, Liz’s reporting shows that Huang’s claims to have qualified for public matching funds were not accurate, leading some voters to feel they were misled about her viability

Just days ago, Knock LA revised its lefty voter guide, going from a Huang-only rec to a dual rec for Raman and Huang

Mike wrote about how Pratt’s mastery of public storytelling is resonating beyond Republicans

Pratt’s candidacy has also drawn sharp commentary from Jimmy Kimmel, and has some wondering if TMZ is now becoming a force in political journalism

The weekend featured a bevy of stories analyzing the race. The LA Times looks at the fraying of the establishment Democratic coalition Tom Bradley forged. The Guardian framed the state’s races as the “most turbulent election in years”

CalMatters reports that big money is pouring into the governor’s race. One of the biggest issues recently has been Chevron’s spending on behalf of frontrunner Xavier Becerra

After months of Democrats worrying they might get shut out of the gubernatorial runoff, there is a slim chance it could be a Democrat vs Democrat race after all

On Friday, an ad hoc council committee chaired by CM Jurado recommended that the City directly enact legislative reforms to Measure ULA and refrain from placing a major overhaul on the November ballot. The rec drew cheers from ULA supporters and jeers from groups who want sweeping changes to ULA

This comes as California voters will be asked this fall to repeal ULA entirely, as part of a Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association prop that would sharply curtail the ability of cities to raise revenue and roll back local taxes across the state. 

Voters will also have a chance to thwart the Jarvis measure thanks to the ACA 13 ballot measure, which would require any ballot measure that raises the voter threshold to meet that higher threshold itself. So the Jarvis measure would need to garner two-thirds of the vote statewide in order to impose a new two-thirds vote requirement for local tax increases

For months, the ULA debate has been shaped by the April 2025 Ward-Phillips report, “Taxing Tomorrow,” which warned that ULA was suppressing production of multifamily housing. ULA supporters say that report has been debunked by a re-analysis of the exact data underlying the April 2025 report, demonstrating that Ward’s quantitative analysis merely showed a decrease in the average size of LA City multifamily housing projects, not a decrease in total units. RAND’s Jason Ward hit back with a new study last week

A really important issue on the ballot for LA County voters is whether to temporarily increase the sales tax to raise money for healthcare programs, backfilling federal cuts. LAist has the most thorough explainer, covering how the measure is structured, the political dynamics, and what the revenue would fund

Are you doing some last-minute cramming to decide how to vote? LA Forward has got you covered. On Election Eve, (TODAY) Monday, June 1, at 6 PM, there’s an cram session on zoom (BYOB: bring your own ballot.)

And of course you can check out LA Forward’s Voter Guide, which covers nearly everything on the ballot

This week’s episode was produced by Kristen Torres

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on IG and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

David Levitus is the founder and executive director of LA Forward. He’s doing his best to stay off social media

Liz Chou reports, writes and edits The LA Reporter, which now has a weekday email newsletter called the Squawk Box. You can follow her on  X, Bluesky, or IG