A lawn-ordure mayor for LA?

In which I violate my own usual practice and engage in horserace election commentary ...

Los Angeles is having an interesting primary election on Tuesday to decide who gets to run for mayor in November. If no contestant gets 50 percent (very unlikely), the top two advance to the final in November. Since the present mayor is termed out, the race started out with lots of competitors but only a few are left. And only two seem to have a chance at moving on: former Congressperson Karen Bass and billionaire developer Rick Caruso.

Bass came out of working as a physician assistant and founded the grassroots development organization Community Coalition in South LA. She jumped to the state Assembly in 2004 and the US Congress in 2011. She's an accomplished, solid Democratic urban politician, with perhaps more on the ground experience with the hard stuff than most. 

Caruso is an unheralded eruption in the Los Angeles political landscape. He has no government experience to speak of beyond serving on an appointed commission. He's a shape shifter who has changed his party registration four times in the last eleven years. And he's spending literally millions of his own money -- $34 million so far -- mostly on TV ads. Bass has raised some $5 million and spent $2 million on TV. Caruso has used his advertising advantage to keep the campaign focused on tickling those usual urban post-pandemic sore spots: homelessness and crime.

And he has a potent ally.

... the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents more than 9,000 rank-and-file officers, [is] making another major push at City Hall. ... So far, the union has moved nearly $4 million into an independent campaign committee targeting the mayoral bid of Rep. Karen Bass.

As if Caruso needed any more cash for his attempt to buy California's big city. 

Current polling shows Bass marginally ahead but neither candidate with enough support to prevent a second round. To be continued in November ...