LOS ANGELES, CA – Outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that her defeat in the Nov. 3 election was part of a national wave of voters demanding change at every level of government, in her first open-press public appearance since she conceded the race to Mayor-elect Nithya Raman.
Bass spoke on Thursday, Nov. 12, at the opening of a new 140-bed interim housing facility in North Hills. The site is to provide homeless people with medical referrals, job counseling and help finding an apartment.
Raman, a City Council member for District 4 and a onetime ally of the mayor, takes office Dec. 14. She won with nearly 55% of the vote to about 45% for Bass, according to the most recent results available Thursday.
Bass, 73, said Raman’s win was at least in part the result of “a wave that took place around the country.” She described the outcome as part of a pattern rather than a verdict on one administration.
Bass describes a recurring pattern
“This happens every five or six years, that voters get in a space where they just want everything new,” Bass said. “And I think that what happened here was part of that.”
She did not describe the result as anything other than a loss. “Obviously I was disappointed in the results,” she said after the event. “But the results are the results.”
According to initial reports, the defeat is the first of Bass’s political career, which spans more than two decades.
Event marked first open-press appearance since concession
The North Hills ribbon-cutting was the first open-press public event scheduled by the mayor’s office since Bass called Raman to concede. The facility offers 140 beds of interim housing, a form of temporary shelter meant to be a step toward permanent housing.
San Fernando Valley civic leaders thanked Bass during the ceremony for making homelessness a priority. Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, a Chatsworth Democrat, told the mayor the problem is “a hard, hard issue to solve, and we’re going to be working on it for a while.”
“But you have moved it forward leaps and bounds,” Schiavo said, addressing Bass directly.
Concession came Nov. 5
Bass conceded Thursday, Nov. 5, two days after the election, when updated returns showed Raman ahead by about 52% to 48% with roughly three-quarters of the ballots counted. The mayor said in a concession statement that the people of Los Angeles had spoken.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said. She added that she had called Raman to congratulate her and had committed “to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition.”
Raman responded in a video statement the same day. “Los Angeles, I’m deeply honored to be your next mayor,” she said, adding that she could not wait to get started “on building a better future together with all of you.” She also said she would go to City Hall “to work every single day to earn your trust.”
The Los Angeles City Clerk’s list of certified candidates for the Nov. 3 general municipal election shows Mayor among the offices on the ballot, with Bass listed as the incumbent and Raman among the candidates.
Council members signal willingness to work with Raman
Several members of the City Council responded to Raman’s win on Nov. 5 and 6. All but one of the council’s 12 other members reacted positively and pledged to work with her, even though none had endorsed her.
Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said disagreement is inevitable but dysfunction is a choice. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who chairs the council’s homelessness committee, said Raman would have a committed partner in her.
According to initial reports, the council will confirm Raman’s appointees, approve her budget and select a replacement for her District 4 seat, which could be filled by appointment.
Homelessness was the center of the race
Bass became mayor in 2022 and made homelessness a cornerstone of her administration. She declared a local emergency on homelessness on her first day in office and soon afterward launched Inside Safe, which moves homeless people into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing.
Raman supported those efforts for much of Bass’s tenure but criticized Inside Safe on the campaign trail, calling it expensive and ineffective. She campaigned on cutting the tent encampment population by at least half before the 2028 Olympics and tripling annual housing construction.
Bass told reporters in North Hills that she feels good about her administration’s progress. She said her office established the city’s first citywide strategy for addressing homeless encampments.
Official counts show a rise in 2026
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2026 count, released July 24, found homelessness in the city of Los Angeles rose 3.4% to 45,194 people. Unsheltered homelessness in the city increased 7.9%, after two years of declines.
Countywide, the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative said in a statement on the 2026 homeless count that “homelessness increased by 1.2% overall and unsheltered homelessness rose by 3.3% countywide.” The statement called the news “disappointing, but not surprising” and attributed it to “a significant decline in state and federal funding for our region, not a local strategy failure.”
The statement also said cuts in state homelessness spending contributed to a pause in new enrollments in Time-Limited Subsidies.
Supervisors and mayor responded to the count
County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell cited the 1.2% increase across the Los Angeles Continuum of Care in her statement on the count. “The reality is that for every person we house, two more fall into homelessness,” she said.
Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath cautioned against reading the count as the full story. “The Point-in-Time Count is one data point—not the whole picture,” she said in a statement on the results, adding that residents care more about whether people are getting into housing and accessing care than about statistics.
Bass also responded to the count on July 24. She said her efforts had driven down homelessness by historic margins for two years in a row, but that last year they could not keep up with federal and state policy and funding cuts.
Inside Safe results remain at issue
According to initial reports, Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people indoors, but nearly 43% of the program’s participants had returned to the streets by Sept. 1. Bass did not address that figure in the remarks reported from North Hills.
Bass welcomes results elsewhere in the country
Bass, a Democrat, expressed delight with election results in other parts of the country. She singled out Mississippi, where voters elected the first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
“I was very happy for the election nationally. Obviously, I’d prefer different results here,” she said. She added that Democratic control of both the Senate and the House means Congress will be able to “put a check on the president, which is something that has been needed.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom had endorsed Bass for re-election in May, before the June primary. No statement from the governor on the Nov. 3 result had been located as of Thursday.
Bass says she has ideas but no plan to run
Asked what she intends to do next, Bass said she has “so many ideas.” Another run for political office is not among them, at least for now.
“You understand never to say never,” she said. “Right now, I can’t imagine it.”
Raman takes office Dec. 14
Bass remains mayor until Raman is sworn in on Dec. 14. In the meantime, the transition Bass promised in her concession statement is under way, and Raman’s inheritance includes Inside Safe, the city’s encampment strategy and the 2026 count figures.
