It’s a Friday night happy hour at Distrito Catorce bar in Boyle Heights, and the regulars note that the crowd listening to Spanish-language jams has a few more unfamiliar faces than usual.
The reason quickly becomes clear, as Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman arrives for a hora feliz con Nithya, sipping a Tajin-rimmed drink and making the rounds to pitch her campaign for mayor.
Albert Orozco, 24, said he appreciated her efforts to reach Latino voters, including an ad in which Raman speaks Spanish.
“We need a mayor who can communicate directly with the Spanish-speaking community,” Orozco said. He said he voted for Karen Bass four years ago but is considering voting for Raman in the June 2 primary.
Latinos make up nearly 37% of the L.A. electorate, making their votes crucial for anyone with mayoral ambitions. That has campaigns putting out ads and social media posts in Spanish, hitting the ground in Latino majority neighborhoods and rallying for key endorsements.
“Whoever wins the Latino vote will win the election,” Loyola Marymount University political science professor Fernando Guerra said.
Right now that looks to be incumbent Mayor Bass, making it an uphill climb for Raman and other candidates.
A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that Bass led with 29% Latino voter support; former TV reality star Spencer Pratt followed at 16%, community organizer Rae Huang at 14% and Raman at 9%. Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller received 3% support.
In April, a UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs poll also found Bass with a wide lead.
“I think she has an opportunity to solidify the Latino vote with a strong primary performance,” said Matt Barreto, a professor of political science and Chicana/o studies at UCLA. “This is hers for the taking.”
But there’s plenty of room to grow — for any candidate: Both polls found a large share of Latino voters were undecided, giving the contenders an opening to win them over in the coming weeks. And as the primary’s final stretch nears, the campaigns are kicking into high gear.
In general, turnout in L.A. tends to be fairly low in primary elections, especially in Latino communities, Barreto said, so candidates vying for their vote need sustained outreach in Latino neighborhoods.
In the last mayoral election in 2022, voter turnout increased across all demographic groups, but the share of Latino voters stayed the same. Some of this has been attributed to Latinos being a younger demographic, immigration status and a lack of voter history in the U.S. That year, Latinos made up 35% of the electorate but less than a quarter of the turnout.
Guerra said there is often an assumption that Latinos will not turn out as much as other groups, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A successful campaign can break that cycle, he said.
Those efforts could be bolstered by the governor’s race, which features prominent Latino candidates, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
“You might have a historic turnout of Latinos … in L.A. because of the energy in that race,” said Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist who is supporting Villaraigosa. “So the question to the candidates running for mayor is: Who’s best positioned to ride that historic wave?”
In March, Bass launched Latinos con Bass in Lincoln Park. The event featured state Sen. María Elena Durazo, Angelica Salas, president of Californians for Human Immigrant Leadership Action Fund, or CHIRLA Action Fund, and Nilza Serrano, president of Avance Democratic Club.
In meetings with Latino leaders and in her TV campaign ads, Bass has emphasized the stand she took against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids launched by the Trump administration in Los Angeles last year.
“She stood in some of the most difficult, difficult moments here in the city of Los Angeles, when ICE and Border Patrol were in our streets,” Salas said of Bass. Her organization is the political advocacy arm of CHIRLA, which assists families affected by immigration raids. “She fought so that our families would stay together.”
Serrano said Bass earned Avance’s support this year, following a rocky relationship after the group endorsed Rick Caruso for mayor in 2022. Bass suggested Caruso had bought the endorsement but later apologized.
“We had a very candid, very honest conversation about some of the things that the Latino community is missing under her administration, and she didn’t dodge, which was kind of impressive,” Serrano said. “She said ‘help me be better.’”
Bass credits her support from Latinos to years of grassroots collaboration.
“We organized together in living rooms in the 1980s,” she said in a statement. “We’ve fought together for our schools, our streets, and our families ever since. … That’s not something you build in a campaign — it’s earned, day by day.”
She has also won over Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who said she is voting for Bass.
“Obviously I’ve been an outspoken critic, and she and I have differed on policies,” Rodriguez said in an interview. But Bass, she said, is the standout for her leadership, such as her involvement in averting a strike by L.A. Unified School District employees. “It’s a lot of pragmatism about how can I make sure that I best protect the city.”
Raman says Latinos voters “are a central part of our growing coalition.”
“We’ve organized campaign events to meet the Latino community, we’re participating in prominent cultural events and our volunteers from all backgrounds are knocking on doors across the city,” she said in a statement.
Polls show that Pratt, the former reality TV star whose home burned in the Palisades fire, is in second place behind Bass for the Latino vote. His campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
An account called Latinos Por Pratt isn’t affiliated with his campaign but supports his run for mayor.
Adrian E. Alvarez, who runs the group’s website, created a song titled “Spencer, Saca La Bassura,” a reference to Pratt’s epithet for the mayor from the Spanish word for trash. Pratt recently posted a five-minute video in which he decried Bass’ past visits to Cuba and claimed that “the only thing the hispanic community hates more than slimy politicians … is COMMUNISTS.”
“Our Latino brothers and sisters have seen the evils of communism, and they are done with it,” Pratt says in the video.
Claudia Agraz, a board member of the Los Angeles Hispanic Republican Club, said she plans to vote for Pratt because she feels that under Bass, the city hasn’t provided enough money for the fire and police departments.
“What we have right now is not working for us, and it would be nice to see a change for better outcomes for the city of Los Angeles,” Agraz said.
Some conservative Latinos are reluctant to support Pratt. David Hernandez, chair of the Hispanic Republican Club, said that he was a fan of Pratt as he rallied for the victims of the Palisades fire, but that the candidate lacks executive experience to run the city.
“Without having a little bit of knowledge about how the chorizo is made, you can’t be the head chef of the kitchen,” Hernandez said.
Pratt’s support in L.A. will hit a ceiling, UCLA’s Barreto said, noting that the candidate hasn’t taken the same hard line against the ICE raids as other candidates. During the televised mayoral debate this month, Pratt was asked to clarify his position on working with ICE.
“If they’re legal or illegal, if they’re a danger — I want them off our streets, that’s what I said,” Pratt said during the May 6 debate. “ICE won’t be coming here because … everybody they’re supposedly looking for, they’re going to be in jail when I’m mayor.”
Two others in the race — Huang, the community activist, and Miller, the tech entrepreneur — have fallen far behind in polling but are also making a run for a share of Latino votes.
Huang makes an effort every day to meet with people in every corner of the community, said Amy Quichiz, Huang’s co-campaign manager, who is of Colombian and Peruvian descent.
“Us as Latinos, we know we don’t have trust in politicians,” she said. “So if you get to know Rae as ‘oh, she’s friends with your contractor,’ ‘Rae is friends with our nanny’ … that is your validator, and that is who they will trust.”
Miller, through his nonprofit Better Angels, spent years working on the Eastside to address the homelessness crisis. In late April, he spent an afternoon in Boyle Heights, meeting with 50 business owners and residents who shared concerns about public safety and infrastructure.
“It is true that Karen Bass gets support — mostly Latinas — and will maintain that support, so that’s kind of off the table for the challengers,” Miller said. But he added: “Those undecided have already decided they’re not supporting Bass, so they just have to decide who they’re supporting against Bass. And that’s why it’s a wide-open race right now.”
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