Black voters couldn’t save Karen Bass from Nithya Raman because there aren’t many left in Los Angeles.

Nithya Raman has defeated incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral race. Decision Desk HQ projected the progressive city councilwoman the winner as she pulled ahead after Election Day. With roughly two-thirds of expected votes counted, Raman led 405,193 to 379,069 (about 51.7% to 48.3%), a margin of more than 26,000 votes that widened from her earlier overnight edge of roughly 16,600.

Bass held a slim lead on election night; late-arriving ballots from younger and more progressive voters flipped and expanded the gap, consistent with analysts’ expectations that she needed a substantial cushion to survive.

Raman, a 45-year-old urban planner and Democratic Socialists of America-aligned councilmember representing a district that includes parts of Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley, entered late after initially endorsing Bass. She campaigned on housing affordability, homelessness management, and municipal basics, criticizing Bass’s Inside Safe program (hundreds of millions spent to house thousands, with high return-to-street rates) and the city’s response to issues including the 2025 Palisades fire.

Bass, 73, a South L.A. native, former Assembly speaker, congresswoman, and the city’s first Black woman mayor, ran as the establishment Democrat with backing from unions, police, and figures like Gavin Newsom. It was a narrow, bitter contest between one-time allies in a nonpartisan race that highlighted generational and ideological divides among Democrats.

Bass’s base in Black Los Angeles was always limited by demography. The city’s Black population has collapsed as a share of the total. It peaked near 18% in 1970 (over 500,000 residents) and stood around 17% in 1980. By 1990 it was about 14%, 2000 roughly 11%, 2010 around 9–10%, and the 2020 Census put it at about 8.3% (roughly 322,000). Recent estimates put the city figure near 8.1% (around 312,000) or, in some ACS tallies including multiracial identification, higher absolute numbers but still a small share of a city of nearly 4 million. The metro area lost nearly 50,000 Black residents between 2020 and 2025 alone—one of the largest declines nationally.

This is not mysterious. High housing costs, gentrification, and economic pressures have driven the exodus. Black homeownership lags, rent burdens are higher, and many families have moved to the Inland Empire, Antelope Valley, or out of state for affordability.

South L.A. neighborhoods that were once heavily Black have shifted Latino. Black residents remain overrepresented among the homeless (around 30% or more of the unhoused population despite being under 10% of residents). The political weight of the Black vote in citywide races has correspondingly shrunk. Even strong support for Bass could not overcome the arithmetic when her coalition was narrower and Raman dominated among younger voters.