A new poll from UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs released Friday found that Latinos are largely undecided on who they plan on voting for in the upcoming L.A. mayoral primary.
Just two months out from election day, 44% of Latinos said they were undecided about who should lead the city with the largest percentage of Latinos in the United States.
Overall, voters of all ethnic backgrounds remained significantly undecided, with 40% unsure who they plan on backing when the polls open June 2.
“It is unusual for 40% of likely voters to be unsure of their choice just two months before an L.A. mayoralty election,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, the director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, in a press release.
The lack of certainty from voters has been traced to the lack of confidence in the incumbent, Mayor Karen Bass.
Among Latinos, Bass received the largest amount of support for any individual candidate, with 29% of Latino voters saying they planned on voting for the 72-year-old politician. On the whole, only 25% of voters planned to vote for Bass. To re-secure her position, Bass would need to get over 50% of votes in the June election to avoid a runoff election against the second-leading candidate.
According to a separate poll released in March, more than half of voters said they viewed Bass unfavorably, with many pointing to her handling of the devastating Palisades fire as major stain on her reputation. In that survey only 31% viewed her favorably.
During her successful 2022 mayoral campaign, Bass relied on Latino voters to push her past fellow mayoral candidate Rick Caruso in a tight race. L.A.’s Latino vote helped her leap from 2.5 percentage points behind the billionaire developer to an insurmountable double-digit lead.
Bass was, in part, bolstered by the endorsements she received from celebrated Latino leaders such as labor icon Dolores Huerta, Sen. Alex Padilla and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, among others.
In the recent poll, the candidate with the second-most support among Latinos was Republican candidate Spencer Pratt, with 9% of Latino voters saying they would back the reality TV star-turned-politician. The 42-year-old dark horse contender has recently made more efforts in courting the Latino vote through meme-y internet tactics and has even employed Spanish to create a new nickname for Bass — “Karen Bassura.”
Pratt polled higher with white and Asian voters, garnering 12% of votes from each group. Overall, 11% of those polled said they planned on voting for Pratt.
Latinos were evenly split on the more left-leaning Democratic candidates: L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman and community organizer Rae Huang, who both polled at 5% with the demographic.
The gap in support for Raman was the largest disparity between Latinos and the overall population surveyed, as 9% of all those surveyed said they would support the 44-year-old L.A. politician.
Raman was more popular with white and Asian voters, nabbing support from 12% of the white voters surveyed and 14% of the Asian voters surveyed.
A recent Loyola Marymount poll placed Raman as the leading candidate in the mayoral race. Raman had a commanding lead in a field of five major candidates, with 33% of voters supporting her, while Bass trailed at 17%. Huang came in just behind Bass at nearly 17% and Pratt had 12%.
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