Polymarket odds tighten sharply in Los Angeles mayoral race

Polymarket’s market on the Los Angeles mayoral election tightened to near parity on Saturday after moving six points toward Karen Bass over 24 hours. Nithya Raman was priced at 52% and Bass at 49%, with $15.3 million traded, three days before their final debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The market had put Raman at 58% and Bass at 43% early Friday. RG.org reported that no larger election market on Polymarket moved as much during the period it compared. No source established a specific cause for the shift.

Raman recently had to clarify that she had not called Bass and Police Chief Jim McDonnell fascists after a social-media video paired their images with the words “Only you can stop fascist liars.” The price move cannot be attributed to that incident or to any other single event on the available evidence.

The market has narrowed even as several conventional polls gave Raman an edge. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll released Sept. 23, based on about 2,100 likely voters surveyed Sept. 15-20, put Raman ahead 39% to 28%, with roughly one-third undecided. Among likely Latino voters, it found Raman leading 45% to 21%.

Those results have been contested as potentially unrepresentative of a tighter contest. Zev Yaroslavsky called the Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times survey an outlier, while pollster Mark DiCamillo said Bass’ unfavorable ratings outnumbered favorable views by nearly 2.5 to 1.

Other more recent campaign-linked surveys pointed to a closer race. A poll for a pro-Raman independent-expenditure group, conducted Oct. 2-7, showed Raman ahead 43% to 33%, with 23% undecided and a 3.5-point margin of error. A United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112-sponsored poll conducted from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5 showed a 35% to 33% Raman lead, with 19% undecided and a four-point margin of error.

A poll for Unidos con Bass, surveying 602 likely Latino voters from Oct. 1-8, instead put Bass ahead of Raman 40% to 28% among that group. That was a 36-point reversal from the Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times Latino-voter result, although the surveys were commissioned by opposing sides and used different field periods.

Bass led the June 2 primary with 34.3% of the vote, followed by Raman at 29.0% and Spencer Pratt at 25.5%. The runoff pits two progressives with support from different parts of the Democratic coalition: Raman is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, while Bass has support from most unions, business groups and many elected officials.

Bass and Raman are scheduled to meet for a one-hour, commercial-free debate at 7 p.m. Pacific time on Oct. 13, broadcast live by NBC4 and Telemundo 52. The event, in partnership with Loyola Marymount University in Universal City, is to be moderated by Colleen Williams, Conan Nolan and Alejandra Ortiz.