Democratic Rep. Karen Bass has defeated billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso to win the Los Angeles mayor’s race, CBS News projected on Wednesday.
Bass was leading Caruso by over 46,000 votes, or just over 6 percentage points, with 74% of precincts reporting. Results have been slowly trickling in for days. Caruso took an early 12,000-vote lead. Bass chipped away at it, before taking a lead herself which widened over the last several days.
Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat, spent over $100 million on his campaign, the vast majority of which was his own money, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Bass, who was endorsed by both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, has served in Congress since 2011. At one point, she was on a shortlist to be Mr. Biden’s running mate. She has said that tackling L.A.’s homeless crisis will be her No. 1 priority if elected.
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“Day one, if I have the privilege and honor of being elected mayor, there is no question, that day one is declaring a state of emergency to address the people who are on our streets,” she told CBS Los Angeles in an interview last month.
Her plan involves getting 15,000 people into temporary or permanent housing within her first year in office.
Bass will replace outgoing L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has served as mayor since 2013, but cannot run again due to term limits. Garcetti was nominated by Mr. Biden back in July 2021 to serve as ambassador to India, but his nomination has been derailed by sexual misconduct allegations against one of his former aides.
