2022 Los Angeles mayoral election


The 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the mayor of Los Angeles, California. A top-two primary was held on June 7, 2022. Candidates could win the election outright by receiving more than 50% of the vote, but no candidate received a majority. More than forty candidates formed committees to run. Twenty-seven filed their declaration of intention to collect signatures for the ballot, and of these twelve qualified.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Garcetti was ineligible to seek a third term due to term limits but was serving an extended second term due to a law moving election dates from an "off-year election" to a midterm and statewide election year. In July 2021, Garcetti was nominated to become List of [ambassadors of the United States to India|United States Ambassador to India]. If Garcetti left office before his mayoral term ended, the Los Angeles City Council would have appointed an interim replacement to finish the remainder of that term. This nomination was stalled in the Senate, leaving Garcetti to finish his term.
U.S. Representative Karen Bass and real estate developer Rick Caruso advanced to the general election. On November 16, Bass was declared the winner.
There were a total of 2,120,515 registered voters within the city of Los Angeles and 1,018,139 votes received as of November 22, 2022 as of the last update; there were 15,105 ballots outstanding within Los Angeles County. The election was nonpartisan, as are all local elections in California.

Candidates

Advanced to general election

Eliminated in primary

Disqualified

  • Louis De Barraicua, teacher and self-described homeless advocate
  • Barry "Boenvilla" Boen, CEO of SilentRight
  • Chuck Cho
  • YJ Draiman, former Northridge East Neighborhood Councilmember and father of David Draiman
  • Austin Dragon, veteran and education advocate
  • Sean Enright, construction worker
  • Jesse N. Forte, self-described astronaut
  • Chris Gilmore, business owner
  • Jesseca Harvey, business administrative consultant
  • Evan Jasek, web developer
  • G. Juan Johnson, housing advocate '
  • Juanita Lopez, businesswoman
  • Alicia Tashaunna Lowery, children's social worker
  • Asher Luzzatto, developer
  • William "Rodriguez" Morrison, community organizer and perennial candidate '
  • Jemiss Nazar, chiropractor
  • Vincent "King Spider-D" Willis, community activist

Withdrawn

Declined

Primary

Campaign

With an open race for mayor, Karen Bass announced that she would retire from Congress and run for Los Angeles mayor. Bass was widely seen as the favorite frontrunner with other moderates and progressives polling much lower and divided amongst themselves. The wide lead led to speculation that Bass would have been able to avoid a runoff all together. Real estate developer Rick Caruso had announced that he would run after speculation in past races and polled in the single digits. However, during the spring of 2022, Caruso saw a surge of support rivaling that of Bass.
As the primary neared, many prominent candidates dropped out and endorsed the two frontrunners, Bass representing the progressive element of the race and Caruso representing the moderate element. This had been shown with two former mayoral candidates: Joe Buscaino, a City Councilmember, endorsed Caruso, and Mike Feuer, the Los Angeles City Attorney, endorsed Bass. Councilmember Kevin de León also had significant support but lagged behind Bass and Caruso, and ultimately did not advance to the general election.

Debates

On December 12, 2021, the Stonewall Democratic Club hosted a forum with candidates Bass, Feuer, Lall, and Greiwe. Buscaino and de León cancelled last minute due to scheduling conflicts. On February 22, 2022, Loyola Marymount University alongside Spectrum News 1 hosted the first formal debate between candidates, with Caruso absent because of a scheduling issue. During the debate, protesters started heckling them, resulting in them attempting to rush the stage near the end of the debate.
On March 22, 2022, FOX 11 along with the Los Angeles Times hosted a debate at the University of Southern California with Bass, Buscaino, Caruso, de León, and Feuer. Although most of the other candidates attacked Caruso, many people said that Caruso had won the debate.
On April 28, 2022, ABC7 announced that they would be hosting a debate at California State University, Los Angeles with the top five leading candidates. In response to the list, candidates Craig Greiwe, Alex Gruenenfelder Smith, Gina Viola, and Mel Wilson criticized their exclusion at the debates and the organizers. Candidate Ramit Varma later released a statement criticizing his exclusion at debates. During the Sunday debate, police removed Melina Abdullah, a professor at Cal State LA and Black Lives Matter founder, as well as other protesters from the room as they did not have a tickets to the event.
The issues talked at the debates were homelessness, the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, crime, and climate change.

Polling

Graphical summary

Runoff

Endorsements

Endorsements in bold were made after the primary election.

Polling

Graphical summary

Poll sourceDate
administered		Sample
size		Margin
Karen
Bass		Rick
Caruso		Undecided
UC Berkeley IGSOctober 25–31, 20221,131 ± 4%45%41%13%
J. Wallin Opinion ResearchOctober 15–17, 2022400 ± 4.9%37%40%24%
UC Berkeley IGSSeptember 22–26, 20221,349 ± 4.0%46%31%23%
UC Berkeley IGSSeptember 22–26, 20221,688 ± 3.5%34%31%31%
Probolsky ResearchSeptember 19–25, 2022500 ± 4.5%48%42%10%
Global Strategy GroupAugust 2022– –43%37%20%
FM3 Research August 2022– –49%38%13%
UC Berkeley IGSAugust 9–15, 20221,746 ± 2.5%43%31%24%
UC Berkeley IGSAugust 9–15, 20221,212 ± 3.0%53%32%14%
UC Berkeley IGSMay 24–31, 20221,204 ± 2.9%37%33%30%
UC Berkeley IGSMay 24–31, 2022816 ± 3.5%49%35%16%
FM3 Research May 13–17, 2022798 ± 3.1%48%39%13%