Karen Bass, Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt were set to meet Wednesday evening in a televised mayoral debate at the Skirball Cultural Center, with Los Angeles voters getting a live look at the race just one day after a combative forum in Sherman Oaks. The one-hour debate was scheduled for 5 p.m. and was to air on NBC4 and Telemundo 52, with a stream available on nbcla.com and telemundo52.com.
Colleen Williams and Conan Nolan of NBC4, along with Telemundo 52’s Enrique Chiabra, were set to moderate the discussion. A debate among the top seven candidates for governor of California was scheduled to follow at 7 p.m., making the evening a paired test of two of the state’s biggest political contests.
The mayoral debate came after Bass and Raman appeared Tuesday night at a Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association forum that excluded other candidates. Organizers said they limited participation to Bass and Raman because of their roles representing the area at different levels of government, a decision that drew criticism from Adam Miller’s campaign. A spokesperson for Miller said the exclusion denied voters the chance to hear a broader range of views on housing, homelessness and public safety.
The stations said candidates had to show at least 5% support in two nonpartisan polls conducted in 2026 that met NBC News standards to qualify for the televised debate. That bar narrowed the field to a small group at a moment when housing and homelessness remain the defining issues in the race, along with the city’s ability to manage daily life on its streets and in its neighborhoods.
Bass, seeking a second term, said she wanted to continue the progress she said she had made on reducing street homelessness by about 18%, cutting crime and creating additional housing. She said, “I’m not just saying patience. I do not have any patience honestly, which is why I have come to this job with a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment because when I take an issue, I head into an issue,”
She also pressed Raman on her record, saying Raman had been at City Hall twice as long as Bass and had led one of the most important committees without addressing key problems. Raman, elected to the council in 2020 as the first South Asian woman on the body and appointed chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee in 2022, shot back that it was wrong to put the blame on one council member when 14 others were involved in making city policy. She also pointed to broken streetlights, deteriorating sidewalks and dirty streets under Bass’ watch.
The pair spent a majority of their debate time on housing and homelessness, including a clash over Senate Bill 79. Bass had urged state legislators not to support the measure and later backed city efforts to delay its implementation. The bill goes into effect July 1 and would require California cities to allow dense housing projects along major transit corridors. Raman has pushed for building more housing across the city while still allowing some less dense projects in single-family zones.
Raman said she was “frustrated like so many Angelenos about the direction the city is headed on fiscal stability, housing costs, homelessness and other issues.” The line captured the mood of a race in which both candidates are trying to define who can most credibly steer Los Angeles through a housing shortage, persistent street homelessness and pressure to change how the city grows.
Wednesday’s debate will not settle those fights on its own, but it will put Bass and Raman before a broader audience at the exact moment those arguments are sharpening. With SB 79 set to take effect July 1, the next public test is whether either candidate can convince voters that their housing vision is more practical, and more politically durable, than the other’s.
