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(Trends Wide) — Rep. Karen Bass topped rival Rick Caruso’s more than $104 million in spending to win the Los Angeles mayoral race, making history as the city’s first female mayor, Trends Wide projects.
The Los Angeles congresswoman was able to build a strong coalition of black voters in South Los Angeles and white progressives on the city’s West Side.
It portrayed Caruso, a shopping mall mogul, as a political opportunist who had registered as a Democrat simply to improve his chances of winning office. By pointing to her past donations to conservative Republicans, she and her allies attempted to raise questions about her support for abortion rights, criticism that Caruso said was unfair, unfounded and an attack on her Catholic faith. .
Karen Bass speaks at an election night party in Los Angeles on Nov. 8, 2022. (Credit: Jae C. Hong/AP)
Caruso toyed with the idea of running for mayor for years after serving in other civic roles, including as city police commissioner and former head of the USC Board of Trustees. One of the biggest hurdles for him was his record as a former Republican turned independent and then a Democrat vying for the top job in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
But he tapped into the frustration many of the city’s voters feel with homelessness, crime and corruption at City Hall: He spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money on ads that portrayed him as a fixer with executive credentials to address those issues and improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the city.
Bass accused Caruso of trying to buy the mayor’s office while they were vying to replace term-limited mayor Eric Garcetti. Caruso, in turn, suggested that Bass and other “career politicians” had been ineffective and that it would take an outsider to clean up city streets and speed up efforts to house the homeless.
Both met in the November elections because neither obtained a majority of the votes in the June primaries.
