A Rick Caruso victory in Los Angeles would be a major defeat for progressives.
A Rick Caruso victory in Los Angeles would be a major defeat for progressives.
L os Angeles is America’s second-largest city, containing about 3.9 million people. It will elect a new mayor today, and, in a surprising development, polls show a tight race between Democratic representative Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, a real-estate developer who is running as a moderate Democrat but was a registered Republican until 2019. A new poll by UC Berkeley and the L.A. Times finds that Bass’s lead has shrunk to just a few points: 45 percent to Caruso’s 41 percent.
The City of Angels has a host of urban problems, from a soaring homeless population to a breakdown in public safety. Violent crime is up by 11 percent since late 2020. This fall, 82 percent of likely voters in Los Angeles County told the Public Policy Institute of California that homelessness was a huge problem.
Caruso argues that his outsider status will allow him to take on “corruption in City Hall,” which was highlighted last month after a tape-recorded racist conversation by three city council members exposed some to the underbelly of city government. Caruso’s courtship of Latinos, who make up a third of the city’s voters, is paying off. The UC Berkeley/L.A. Times poll gave him a 17-point advantage over Bass among Latinos. Many of Caruso’s Latino supporters point to Bass’s longstanding ties with Cuba, which the 69-year-old began visiting in the 1970s as a leftist organizer. After Fidel Castro’s death in 2016, Bass released a statement saying that, “The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.”
She has since renounced those comments, but Senator Marco Rubio still calls her “potentially the highest-ranking Castro sympathizer in the history of the United States government.”
Despite her record, Bass has been endorsed by nearly every major national Democrat. A notable exception is California governor Gavin Newsom, who says he considers both candidates “friends” and won’t choose between them.
Surprisingly, many Hollywood celebrities who reflexively back Democrats for president have endorsed Caruso, who is also a former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. Many tout his promises to address the city’s quality of life and public safety.
Actor Chris Pratt (of Parks and Recreation fame) said, “I’ve seen what many residents here have seen, the city’s gradual decline into pain and utter disarray.
“If you live here, you know exactly what I’m talking about,” he continued. “I don’t normally support political candidates. But in this election, there’s too much to lose.”
Former first lady of California Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, tweeted: “If you want Los Angeles to be different than it is today, the choice is clear with @RickCarusoLA. Change is critical to the city’s future. It’s up to us — let’s go.”
The business end of Hollywood has also decided that Bass would be a bust for the industry. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos took out an ad in the Hollywood Reporter in which he endorsed Caruso:
The entire Machine of the Democratic Party has aligned for a candidate that is part of the very system that is failing this city. They are wrong. I am choosing to ignore the endorsements of the club members for a club member and vote for better leadership. I encourage you to do the same.
Other prominent Caruso supporters include singer Katy Perry, rapper Snoop Dogg, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and influencer Kim Kardashian.
I guess when the homeless set up camp just down the street from your mansion, desperate celebrities will finally abandon the Democrats.
A Caruso victory would be a major defeat for progressives because it would represent a huge repudiation of their policies in a city that gave Joe Biden over 80 percent of the vote in 2020