00:00Developer Rick Caruso has announced that he is voting for incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass for
00:06re-election. He's not fully endorsing Bass, but he clearly prefers Bass over socialist challenger
00:12Nithya Raman. Caruso's vote matters because he ran against Bass four years ago. He spent almost
00:19$105 million of his own money in an attempt to defeat her, and even though he came up short in
00:25the end, he had been and remains a vocal critic of some of the things that she has done or
00:31failed
00:32to do as mayor. He was very critical of the city's response to the Palisades fire, for example,
00:37and he has been very critical of the city's response to homelessness and maintenance in general.
00:42Still, Caruso, like many other people on the west side, believes that Raman and her socialists would
00:48be even worse. Raman notably has opposed the removal of homeless encampments near schools
00:54and her socialist organization has a variety of other radical policies, including the seizure
01:00of private property and other such ideas. City Council member Tracy Park has adopted a similar
01:07approach to Caruso, not endorsing Karen Bass, but voting for her. She explained to constituents in a
01:14recent meeting in the fire zone in Pacific Palisades that while she was deeply disappointed in Bass's
01:19performance during the Palisades fire, she could not work well with Raman, and that Raman had not
01:25lifted a finger to help Pacific Palisades until the election came around. That is a sentiment that
01:31reflects how many people feel on the west side of LA. In a recent California Post poll, Raman leads
01:37Bass by eight points in the city overall, but is losing to Bass by a wide margin on the west
01:43side. And it's
01:44ironic because that's the part of the city that voted for Caruso four years ago. Bass now has to depend
01:50on
01:50the votes of the people who voted against her last time in order to stay in office in the 2026
01:56election.
