Los Angeles mayoral election looms. New poll shows something 'unusual'

Many Los Angelenos are undecided in the city’s mayoral election, something one expert called “unusual” considering voters will cast their ballots in less than two months.

A poll from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs found that 40% of voters are undecided in a race that’ll determine who leads one of the nation’s most populous cities in the coming years.

Meanwhile, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt earned support in the double-digits — the only two candidates to do so — in the poll released on April 3.

“It is unusual for 40% of likely voters to be unsure of their choice just two months before an LA mayoralty election,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, said in a statement.

Los Angelenos will vote for their next mayor on June 2. The two candidates with the most votes will move on to the election in November if no candidate receives the majority of votes.

Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles County supervisor and L.A. councilmember, said Bass faces “the most challenging reelection of an incumbent mayor in decades.”

Bass has long faced scrutiny due to the wildfires in January 2025, including for her being out of the country when the devastating Palisades Fire broke out, to more recent accusations that she was reportedly involved in the “watering down” of an after-action report about the fire — a move her office has denied.

It comes as Los Angelenos will join Californians statewide in voting for governor in June. In California, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will move on to the ballot in November — a process that has some Democrats alarmed they’ll be shut out of the race if the numerous Democrat candidates running ultimately leads to a splintered vote.

See the latest results in the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election poll

The findings from the poll are similar to those of a survey released in March. That survey found that about 50% of voters were undecided, with Bass leading at 19.5% followed by Pratt at 10.2%.

Here are the poll’s findings, although there are more than a dozen candidates running for the position:

• Karen Bass: 25%
• Spencer Pratt: 11%
• Nithya Raman: 9%
• Rae Chen Huang: 3%
• Adam Miller: 3%
• A different candidate: 9%
• Undecided: 40%

The poll surveyed 813 likely primary voters between March 15-29, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs said.

Paris Barraza is a reporter covering Los Angeles and Southern California for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].