If it were up to Pacific Palisades, Spencer Pratt would be mayor of Los Angeles.
The affluent coastal community gave its native son 51% of the vote in the June 2 primary, which would have been enough to win the job outright. But he was outperformed citywide, leaving Palisades voters with a choice some liken to picking the lesser of two evils: Mayor Karen Bass or Councilmember Nithya Raman.
Raman, a progressive member of the Democratic Socialists of America, got just 14% of the Palisades vote in the primary. Bass, who was scorned for being out of town during the January 2025 Palisades fire despite high wind warnings, did slightly better with 18%.
“You have a choice between a socialist, which they can’t stomach, and someone who’s actually destroyed the town,” said Sue Pascoe, editor of the Palisades-based publication Circling the News. “Many don’t see that as a choice at all. … Do you want to jump in hot oil, or do you want to drown in the ocean?”
The Times spoke with more than a dozen Palisades voters about who they plan to support in the Nov. 3 general election. Some said they plan to abstain; others said they’ll hold their nose and vote. One dreamed of recalling the next mayor, be it Bass or Raman.
“There’s not a choice that meets the needs of our community,” said Joanna Curtis, a lifelong Palisadian who lost her home in the fire and voted for Pratt in the primary.
“Our current mayor is not advocating for our community, and everything that she’s saying is just political rhetoric,” she said. “Because [for] those of us in the trenches, those of us that have to live through this rebuild, everything that she is saying is not happening.”
But Curtis isn’t happy with Raman either, pointing to the council member’s repeated votes against bans on encampments near schools.
“I’m sorry, a homeless person living 50 feet or 500 feet from a school is completely unacceptable,” said Curtis, a teacher.
Pratt — a former reality TV star who grew up in Pacific Palisades and lost his home in the Palisades fire — made Bass’ absence during the fire, and her response to the disaster, a centerpiece of his failed campaign. He hasn’t endorsed either candidate but has come out particularly hard against Raman.
“Nithya Raman is the worst possible choice for Mayor imaginable,” he wrote on the social media site X. “My voters tell me they would rather vote for a literal crackhead on Skid Row than ever give that scammer a single vote.”
The Palisades fire killed 12 people and destroyed more than 4,000 homes and residential buildings. Recovery is well underway, with the sounds of hammers, saws and nail guns ringing through the air. Construction workers gather around food trucks amid the sea of wooden frames and empty lots. Yet, for some Palisades residents — in month 20 of recovery — the pace remains frustratingly slow.
Palisadians have sharply criticized the mayor for being in Africa when the fire broke out, despite advance warnings about exceptionally dangerous fire weather. Bass had also left the deputy mayor of public safety position vacant after the former officeholder fabricated a bomb threat against City Hall. Top fire commanders decided not to deploy roughly 1,000 extra firefighters and dozens of engines in advance of the fire.
Bass contends the city’s emergency preparedness is now “light years better” than when the fire broke out, while still advocating for a larger Fire Department.
“Mayor Bass has been in the Palisades, and every other part of the city, to do the work,” said Alex Stack, Bass campaign spokesperson, in a statement to The Times. “Mayor Bass cut permitting time, waived rebuilding fees, and has taken on the banks and insurance companies that are the holdup on people getting their payouts.”
Raman, who was recently endorsed by DSA’s L.A. chapter, asserts that fixing street lights and potholes isn’t an ideological endeavor, however, and — not unlike Pratt — has framed herself as an agent for change.
“As mayor, I’ll be the strongest partner for Palisades residents: lobbying for desperately needed resources and policy changes from the state and federal government, supporting their fight against insurance companies, and ensuring that the city does everything possible to bring them back home,” Raman said in a statement to The Times.
In May, Raman announced a comprehensive Palisades recovery plan that touched on many of the demands fire survivors had been voicing for more than a year. Last month, she attended a forum in the Palisades to answer residents’ questions.
Yet, many in the Palisades remain unaware of her campaign visits or recovery plan. As for those familiar with some of her proposals for the burn area, “talk is cheap,” said Helen Pickup, who has lived in Rustic Canyon for 16 years and also had to deal with smoke contamination after the fire.
Pickup, who voted for Bass in the primary and probably will do so again in the general, described the incumbent as the “least bad” option.
Although the Palisades often votes for Democrats, Pascoe said Raman’s affiliation with DSA is a major sticking point with many Palisades voters.
“They managed to get to Pacific Palisades because they worked hard, they saved their money,” Pascoe said, “not because someone gave it to them.”
Tracey Alexander, who lost her home in the fire and is still considering whether to rebuild, said the DSA debate is a distraction.
“I’m just sort of tired of the debate, quite honestly,” said Alexander, who describes herself as a moderate Democrat. “I think that we have to shift it away from ideological labeling to really concrete economic ideas — you know, they call her a pothole pragmatist, the DSA does. … That’s what we need.”
Alexander, who voted for Raman in the primary and plans to do so again in November, said she is frustrated that Bass hasn’t provided a clear path for how the city will rebuild all of its public infrastructure.
John Alle, a Palisades resident and real estate businessman who voted for Pratt in the primary, said he’s wringing his hands over how to vote in November.
Alle, whose home was contaminated by smoke in the Palisades fire, disagrees with Raman’s politics. As for the current mayor, “I’m true to my heart, and I can’t, knowing what she’s done … I can’t morally or ethically cast a vote for her,” he said.
Some Palisades residents, however, say they have found the mayor’s office quite helpful during the recovery process.
“I’m disappointed in the choices, obviously,” said Ross Greenberg, who voted for Pratt. Greenberg and his family completed the rebuilding process and moved back home in June.
“I will say … there was some help from the mayor’s office. She had some very good people, in terms of helping us get home,” he said. “So, I think about that as I think about how I vote.”
Jeremy Padawer, a toy-maker who was pulled into advocacy after he lost his home in the fire, tries to avoid the left-right tribalism that dominates today’s politics. Instead he has a simple test for the candidates:
“My vote for mayor is going to have a lot to do with the person who better articulates accountability for what happened in these fires and who better articulates a plan to make it where this never happens to another person in the Los Angeles area again,” Padawer, who voted for Pratt, said.
So far, both candidates have a failing grade in his books, but he noted Raman’s recovery plan was a “step in the right direction.”
As for the incumbent, “if Mayor Bass, literally the day before the election, gets on the podium and says, ‘Mistakes have been made. We are going to do the right thing,’ that would probably be enough for me … to vote for her,” he said.
Dissatisfied with their options, some in the Palisades can’t help but think of what might have been.
“The one person I think the entire city would vote for … is Rick Caruso,” Palisades resident AJ Chipman said while sitting in a white Adirondack chair on the lush green lawn of Caruso’s Palisades Village.
Caruso, who lost the 2022 mayoral race to Bass, reopened the shopping center last month after extensive renovations following the fire. The center is already bustling with people. Warm jazz fills the air as crews work on new storefronts.
How Caruso’s team operates “the Grove, the Americana and this,” Chipman said, “that was what L.A. should be.”
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