See what candidates said at the Los Angeles mayoral debate

(This story was updated to add new information.)

An incumbent mayor, her "worst nightmare" and the city councilmember who joined the race at the last minute — Karen Bass, Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman participated in a debate on Wednesday, May 6, as the Los Angeles mayoral election nears.

The three candidates discussed affordability, public safety and more. NBC4 hosted the debate alongside Telemundo 52. It comes as Los Angelenos and Californians statewide gear up for the June 2 primary election, during which critical local and state elections take place. Notably, voters will winnow a crowded field of candidates for governor down to two.

Here are key takeaways from the debate:

Who ordered an operation at MacArthur Park?

A timely question came for Bass: Who ordered an operation that played out in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park on May 6? NBC4 reported that federal agents and Los Angeles Police Department officers searched several locations nearby as part of a narcotics trafficking investigation. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, 18 people were arrested, including two people authorities believe are "the main sources of fentanyl and methamphetamine" at MacArthur Park.

Bass said this operation was “ordered by the feds.” She said, however, they’ve been working in collaboration because they were aware of the “drug dealing” taking place there.

Bass said “we have used a comprehensive approach” with regard to MacArthur Park. The mayor used the moment to highlight how her proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027 features an increase in police officers, but that it still isn’t enough. Bass said she hasn’t had cooperation from the city council with regard to hiring for more police.

“I supported multiple budgets, thoughtful budgets, that maintained and sometimes even increased the size of the police force,” Raman said, although she continued to say she voted against a contract “that gave the police union more money than the city had.”

Pratt was also asked about the operation in Los Angeles on May 6.

“I hope we have the FBI, the DEA, the CDC, the ATF — the more resources we can make the streets” of Los Angeles “safe with federal money, amazing,” according to Pratt.

Pratt later said increasing the size of the city’s police force to the levels needed “needs to be a priority.”

Bass defends her homelessness program

Bass was asked to defend her Inside Safe program, which is intended to move people off the streets and from encampments into housing. The Los Angeles Times reported that Inside Safe participants were back on the street in figures that have climbed over the course of several years.

As the moderator put it: “There’s a concern that a lot of money is being spent. There’s been some progress, certainly not enough.”

For Bass, it was a matter of perspective, pointing to a greater percentage of people who “stay inside” with Inside Safe.

Meanwhile, Raman was questioned about just how realistic her goals were on homelessness. More specifically, the city councilmember recently made a promise to cut tents and encampments in half by the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Raman, who insisted it was realistic, pivoted back to spending on homelessness — and results.

“I don’t think anybody in Los Angeles right now can say that we are satisfied with spending extraordinary amounts of money on our homelessness response and getting only incremental progress in response,” Raman said.

Pratt, however, was critical of the Inside Safe program.

“I like to say Inside Safe makes all of us outside unsafe,” he argued. “The reality is no matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth. They are on fentanyl.”

Pratt vs. Bass? Raman says they don’t want to run against her

Raman had a message for viewers at home: You’re going to watch Pratt and Bass attack her. She argued it’s because they want to run against each other in the general election.

Raman said Bass and Pratt don’t want to run against her because of her ideas, which she said are based on real results in her district.

“Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together,” said Pratt, the former reality TV star of “The Hills” fame who lost the home he shared with wife Heidi Montag in the Palisades Fire and has been a critic of Bass. “I blame this person for burning my house and my parents’ house and my town, all my neighbors, down.”

He continued to say that if he wanted to run against anyone, it would be the “councilmember who is terrible” as opposed to an incumbent mayor endorsed by unions.

How to tackle unaffordability in LA

One question came from a student at Loyola Marymount University: Los Angeles remains one of the most unaffordable regions in the nation. If elected, what’s an immediate change they could make?

Bass pointed to her expediting units for affordable housing, saying that a primary driver for the lack of affordability in Los Angeles is housing. She added that zoning codes can be changed to open up more units for affordable housing.

Raman said that the city needs to get out the way, pointing to how long it takes to approve multi-family housing apartments.

Raman said she’d use her executive authority over city departments and ensure they respond to new apartment applications within 60 days if they’re zoning compliant.

Noncitizen voting in LA: Yay or nay?

Candidates were asked whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in local elections, a reference to the recent efforts undertaken by Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez that could potentially let noncitizens in Los Angeles cast their ballot for races like mayor.

Though it was intended to be a yes or no question — Pratt said no —  Bass and Raman had more to say on the topic.

Bass said it depends, and that “we have to see what” Soto-Martínez is proposing.

“When you say noncitizens, it doesn’t mean they’re here illegal,” Bass said. “It doesn’t mean they’re undocumented. They could have green cards. They could be here perfectly legal, and there’s a lot of states and cities that do that on very, very local elections.”

Raman said it does depend, but was quickly cut off as one moderator posed a new question.

Is downtown Los Angeles beyond repair?

Candidates were asked about their plans for downtown Los Angeles, which one moderator described as seemingly in a “state of crisis.”

Raman was specifically asked whether she’d agree to bringing city workers back full time to the office, a move that could support downtown businesses.

While she agreed city and county workers need to be brought back, it’s not the only “intervention” downtown Los Angeles needs; the city councilmember said what downtown Los Angeles needs is “more public safety officials on the streets,” “regular cleanups,” “real maintenance” and that it “needs a strategy.”

“We don’t have a strategy to keep businesses here in Los Angeles, and we’re watching as they walk away from this city instead of investing in it,” Raman said.

Pratt brought up safety issues with downtown Los Angeles.

“Before we require city workers to go back into any buildings, we need to enforce the laws of the street,” he said.

For Bass, downtown Los Angeles is “an economic engine” that needs attending to.

“We are working with the downtown business associations,” Bass said. “We are increasing public safety there.”

The mayor pointed to the city’s adaptive reuse ordinance intended to spur the conversion of existing buildings into housing.

“That is why we have to deal with the street homelessness that is there,” Bass said. “There needs to be massive intervention there.”

When is the LA mayor election?

Los Angelenos vote for mayor on June 2. However, if no candidate receives a majority of votes in this election, the two candidates with the most votes will face each other in the general election in November.

What do recent polls say?

A poll from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in early April found that Bass led with 25% of voters’ support, but a chunk of voters, 40%, were undecided in a race that’s creeping closer.

Following Bass was Pratt at 11%. Meanwhile, Raman polled at 9%.

The figures weren’t too dissimilar to that of an Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics survey released in March: Bass and Pratt were the only candidates to receive support in the double-digits, with Bass in the lead.

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