Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso jumped to a narrow early lead over U.S. Rep. Karen Bass as the first returns arrived Tuesday night in their costly primary race to become Los Angeles’ next mayor, with pre-election polling suggesting they will be forced to square off again in a November runoff election.
The early results included ballots cast by mail and received by voting officials by Monday. Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de León was third, far behind the leaders, with progressive activist Gina Viola fourth.
With voters in a sour mood after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, a seemingly intractable homelessness crisis and increased gun violence, the vote was viewed as a referendum on whether Los Angeles would stick with the liberal Democratic leadership that has been in charge for most of the last half-century.
As the early front-runner in the campaign and a longtime Democratic office holder, Bass campaigned as a coalition builder who could leverage her connections in Sacramento and Washington to bring more resources to L.A.
Caruso, a onetime Republican turned Democrat, pledged to shake up the status quo and make City Hall more efficient, while hiring substantially more police and moving rapidly to clear away homeless encampments.
The stark choice animated some voters but hardly galvanized the larger electorate, as early vote totals showed only about 18% of Los Angeles voters had cast ballots. Final results will trickle in, as mail-in ballots postmarked by election day will be accepted for one more week.
The election will determine who succeeds Mayor Eric Garcetti, who won the maximum two terms and is scheduled to leave office in December. President Biden has appointed Garcetti to serve as ambassador to India, but his confirmation has stalled in the U.S. Senate. A runoff will take place if no candidate receives a simple majority of the votes cast in the primary.
The 63-year-old Caruso, waging his first campaign for public office, showed signs of…