New polls size up races for governor and LA mayor ahead of primary

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]First of all, are you are you at all surprised? And do you think that the debate swayed undecided voters?

[00:00:06]>> Have uh I'll tell you the um uh in the race for governor, clearly there are a lot of Democrats, and we see this in the PPIC poll uh have held on to their ballots because they weren't sure about whether or not uh they're they're going to be locked out of the top two.

[00:00:22]Remember there that was the narrative for such a long time and we talked about it. The media talked about it. The possibility of two Republicans uh finishing one and two because there were eight Democrats running could split up the vote. Well, a lot of Democrats still believe that. The party no longer believes that. Rusty Hicks, the chair of the California Democratic Party, says, "No, we will have a Democrat in the top two." But a lot of Democrats were waiting to see who they should vote for to make sure they had somebody in that top two. And this is the guy that they went to, Javier Basera. Keep in mind, it was just over two months ago. He was polling so poorly that he was not going to be included in the USC debate. Now, Tommy Styer is the guy who's closest to him. Remember, Styer is not trying to catch Basera. He's actually trying to catch Steve Hilton, the Republican, um, who is he's five points behind. He's hoping to get in the number two slot so he can go monoeo with uh, Bera in the fall. Steve Hilton, by the way, he he released a statement saying uh this is proof that Chad Biano needs to drop out and that people that support Chad Biano, the Riverside County Sheriff splitting the Republican vote, they need to get behind Steve Hilton in order to make sure there is a Republican in the fall.

[00:01:35]So, uh yeah, it it I you know, a lot of people don't like sports analogies, but people in my line of work love them. Um this is the fourth quarter. They got to go deep. If you're in hockey, you pull the uh you pull the the goalie. Or if you want a culinary uh analogy, this cake is almost baked. And so Steve, I I understand Tommy Sty has two more hit pieces out today attacking Javier Basera. I think it's too late. He should save his money.

[00:02:00]>> Okay. So realistically, do you think that these numbers could change again?

[00:02:04]>> Yeah. Unlikely, frankly. I'll tell you the race for mayor though that's really fascinating because it is you see that uh that was a shocker to the Bass campaign.

[00:02:14]>> I mean I mean they were they were that is a blow to them. The idea that she might have a ceiling in this primary and that Nitia Ramen who didn't do all that well in our debate quite frankly she has recovered significantly. Uh and this is the best this poll by the way by the uh the center for governmental studies sponsored by the LA Times. That's the biggest sample of any poll we've had in Los Angeles. So there's no reason to doubt these numbers and it's within the margin of error. So the difference is almost insignificant between the three of them. In fact, there is the possibility that Nitia Ramen and Spencer Pratt could finish one and two and the incumbent mayor not might might not make November. That that just the possibility of that is sort of stunning. So yeah, that is a jump ball right now. And again, it all all depends on turnout, whether progressives are going to turn out for Nitia Ramen, conservatives for Spencer Pratt or everybody else uh for and people that have supported Karen Bass in the past. Whether or not they want to give her a second term and turn out it's that's going to decide this race. You know, it really is just so fascinating to see how much Ninthia Nthia Ramen has actually come up compared to what we saw just, you know, a few weeks ago as always.

[00:03:31]>> Yeah, true. And by the way, Karen Bass has focused all her attention on Nitia Ramen. Uh, and that's because the conventional wisdom has been she's hoping Spencer Pratt makes the runoff because it's very difficult for a Republican to win in in Los Angeles.

[00:03:46]They're only 15% of the registered vote.

[00:03:49]But there's there's a possibility that that Spencer Pratt, who has raised as much money as the incumbent, uh could still make the runoff. And the idea that he could do it without running against the mayor, but running against the council woman, that's that's that's kind of amazing.

[00:04:04]>> All right, we'll just have to wait and see. As always, Conan Nolan, thank you so much for that. My pleasure.