Independents and Republicans May Hold the Power in Los Angeles – If They Actually Vote
A coordinated Democratic Socialist coalition is mobilizing across six races in LA. The largest bloc of eligible voters in several key districts isn't hearing from anyone.
Los Angeles voters are heading into a June 2 primary that may settle far more than who advances to November.
Under the Los Angeles City Charter, any candidate who clears 50% of the primary vote wins outright. No runoff. No November election. That rule turns the June primary into the only election in several of the city's most closely watched contests.
It is worth noting that this rule is not universal. In 2016, San Diego voters passed Measure K, a ballot measure authored by the Independent Voter Project, which eliminated San Diego's identical 50% primary rule and required all city elections to proceed to a November top-two runoff. Voters approved it with nearly 59% of the vote.
Los Angeles never made that change. The result is a system where a low-turnout June primary can end a race entirely, with no opportunity for the broader November electorate to weigh in.
At the same time, DSA-Los Angeles (Democratic Socialists of America) is running the most coordinated progressive municipal campaign the city has seen in years a six-race slate under the Shake Up LA banner, with active canvass programs, postcard campaigns, and small-donor fundraising networks already operational.
The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members.
Their core message is explicit: "LA is under attack by ICE, billionaire bosses, racism, oppression, and Trumpism; and the status quo is failing to meet the moment."
The message is all about base mobilization, and not persuasion – a strategy designed specifically for LA's low-turnout June primaries, where a motivated bloc of 4,000 to 6,000 well-organized voters can be decisive in a race that draws 25,000 to 45,000 total.
What DSA-LA is counting on (and what the registration data confirms) is that the other side of the ledger isn't organized at all.
The Voter Universe No One Is Targeting
Across the four council districts where DSA has endorsed candidates, voter registration data shows more than 200,000 registered No Party Preference (NPP), American Independent (AIP), and Republican voters.
These voters are fully eligible to participate in nonpartisan local elections on June 2 regardless of their party registration.
This group historically does not receive any targeted outreach in June municipal primaries. Their turnout rates in primaries run well below what they produce in November generals.
In CD11, that bloc totals 67,620, and is nearly 40 percent of total district registration. In CD15, it's 61,798 44.2 percent of the electorate, the highest combined non-Democratic share of any targeted district. In CD13, it's nearly 54,000. In CD1, more than 42,000.
In low-turnout primaries, those voters are the election. If they show up.
Council District 1: The DSA Incumbent and The Challenger Field
Eunisses Hernandez is seeking re-election in a district that stretches from Glassell Park and Highland Park to Chinatown and Pico Union. She is the district's first DSA-backed councilmember, and her record reflects that alignment directly.
Hernandez co-founded La Defensx, an organization focused on shifting county resources away from incarceration toward community-based services.
In office, she authored the city's Sanctuary City Ordinance, led Measure ULA implementation, and passed what the DSA describes as the strongest tenant protections in 40 years. She was the only councilmember to vote against the city budget in her first year, citing inequitable resource allocation.
Hernandez won her 2022 primary outright with 53.9% – a 2,408-vote margin out of 29,888 votes cast.
Four challengers have been certified: Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles Police Commissioner and founder of the nonprofit Legacy LA; Nelson Grande, an executive consultant and former president of Avenida Entertainment Group; Raul Claros, founder of the CD1 Coalition, which runs community cleanup days; and Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and former council aide.
The non-Democratic voter universe in CD1 totals 42,396 voters, 37.4% of total registration. A 5-point turnout lift among that group would yield roughly 2,120 additional votes. In a multi-candidate field, that's enough to determine whether Hernandez wins outright in June or faces a November runoff, and who finishes second.
Council District 9: The Open Seat and the Organizing War
This is LA’s lowest-income district, covering communities in South Los Angeles that have faced decades of disinvestment. With Curren Price terming out, the seat is open and DSA's investment here is significant.
Estuardo Mazariegos is the Shake Up LA candidate. He's Co-Director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), a longtime labor organizer who helped lead the Fight for $15 and organized with SEIU. His platform calls for social housing on city-owned vacant lots, shutting down gas-fired power plants, expanding transit, and tenant protections including universal eviction defense.
His primary opponent is Jose Ugarte, longtime aide to the departing Price and the candidate favored by much of the incumbent's political network. Shake Up LA frames Ugarte as the "Status Quo Coalition" candidate: someone who uses progressive language while ultimately serving real estate developers over working families.
It's a sharp contrast that makes CD9 as much an intra-left battle as a left-versus-center one. Other candidates in the six-person field include Elmer Roldan, Jorge Hernandez Rosas, Jorge Nuño, and Martha Sanchez.
The non-Democratic voter universe in CD9 is 37,196, the smallest of the four targeted districts and the most heavily Democratic. With a crowded field likely to produce a November runoff, independent and Republican votes could still shape which two candidates advance.
Council District 11: The Race That Ends June 2
This is the highest-leverage race in Los Angeles, and the stakes are simple: one candidate wins on June 2 and that's it.
The certified ballot has two names: incumbent Traci Park and DSA-endorsed challenger Faizah Malik. A third candidate, Jeremy Wineberg, did not qualify.
Under the 50% rule, the winner of a two-candidate race clears the threshold automatically. There is no November runoff, no second window of opportunity to vote.
Park is a municipal law attorney and the only moderate to win a council seat in the 2022 cycle. Her 2026 campaign is shaped heavily by the Palisades fire, which devastated Pacific Palisades and other communities in her district.
Park has been closely identified with the recovery effort, including fire victim tax relief and rebuilding measures. Her endorsements span mainstream institutional Los Angeles: US Senator Adam Schiff, Congressman Ted Lieu, Congressman Brad Sherman, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, and the TCU/IAM Local 1315 transit workers union, along with LAFD and LAPD labor organizations.
Malik is a Venice resident and civil rights and housing attorney, born in Southern California to South Asian Muslim immigrant parents. Her platform centers on renter protections, affordable housing, and equitable land use policy.
She has worked with DSA-LA, LA Forward, and the Keep LA Housed (KLAH) Coalition. She is also a vocal supporter of Palestinian human rights – a position central to the activist base mobilizing behind her.
The non-Democratic voter universe in CD11 is 67,620 or 39.8% of the total registered voting population, including 14% Republican (nearly double the Republican share in any other DSA-targeted district).
The district covers Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice, Mar Vista, Playa Vista, and Westchester. It is majority European ancestry (50.6%), highly educated, and heavily homeowner. Nearly a quarter of residents are over the age of 65.
Voter registration data analyzed ahead of the primary shows that a 5-point turnout lift among NPP, AIP, and Republican voters in CD11 would produce approximately 3,381 additional votes. A 10-point lift would add roughly 6,762.
In a primary where total votes cast may be between 30,000 and 50,000, those numbers are structurally decisive.
The evidence that this kind of outreach works here is documented.
In 2022, a voter education program targeted approximately 35,000 NPP and 10,000 Republican voters in CD11 during the November general election. The district produced the highest NPP participation rate of any comparable Democrat-versus-Democrat district citywide.
Republican turnout outperformed Republican registration share, the only such result in any comparable race that cycle.
While every other comparable D-vs-D race saw moderate candidates' leads erode by 9 to 10 points in late mail ballot counting, Park's margin shifted by just 1 point. She won by 4,048 votes.
That year, the program ran in November. However, in 2026, there will be no November election for CD11.
Council District 13: The DSA Incumbent Under Pressure
Hugo Soto-Martinez represents Echo Park, Hollywood, and Atwater Village and is one of the DSA's most prominent elected officials in Los Angeles. Before taking office, he organized with UNITE HERE Local 11 for 16 years.
In office, he authored the city's Sanctuary City law, lowered rent hikes for rent-stabilized units for the first time in 40 years, and led anti-harassment and no-fault eviction protections.
Shake Up LA's framing is direct about the stakes: "big business interests are pouring resources into multiple 'law-and-order' candidates, hoping that a divided field will weaken the progressive movement and flip a seat."
Three challengers are in the race: Colter Carlisle, Rich Sarian, and Dylan Kendall. The presence of multiple opponents is itself a strategic play: divide the anti-incumbent vote enough to force a runoff, then consolidate in November.
The non-Democratic voter universe in CD13 is 53,976 - 35.8% of registration. In a multi-candidate field likely to produce a November runoff, independent and Republican voters could determine who finishes second and advances.
Council District 15: The Harbor District's High-Stakes, Two-Candidate Race
CD15 has the highest Republican registration share of any city council district at 17%. The combined non-Democratic voter universe is 61,798 or 44.2% of total registration.
Incumbent Tim McOsker is a lifelong San Pedro community member with three decades in city government. He served as chief of staff and chief deputy city attorney under Mayor James Hahn and most recently as CEO of AltaSea, a nonprofit focused on ocean sustainability and port-area job creation.
His platform centers on harbor-area quality of life, jobs, clean air and water, housing, and public safety.
His challenger is Jordan Rivers, a community organizer running in the harbor, San Pedro, and Watts communities that make up the district. The Los Angeles Times reported recently that when Rivers was 12, he stabbed an 8-year-old neighbor while the two were playing video games, a lawsuit alleged. Rivers denied attacking the boy and said it was an “accident.”
DSA-LA did not endorse in this race.
The structural dynamics are identical to CD11: two certified candidates, one of whom wins in June. With a 44.2% non-Democratic voter universe, larger by combined share than any other targeted district, a modest turnout lift would produce approximately 3,090 additional votes at a 5-point lift, or 6,180 at 10 points.
Mayor: Bass, Raman, Pratt, and the Shape of the Fall
The mayoral race will almost certainly produce a November runoff. Fourteen candidates are on the ballot and no one is likely to clear 50 percent. But June determines who the two finalists are and that question is less settled than conventional wisdom suggests.
Cara Brown McCormick
Mayor Karen Bass is seeking re-election after a first term defined by her Inside Safe homelessness initiative and by the Palisades Fire. Downtown business leaders and the LA Chamber of Commerce are backing her second term, as are former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and County Supervisor Hilda Solis.
NBC4 reported that Bass cited a reduction in street homelessness at a recent event announcing business support for her campaign.
Nithya Raman, the CD4 councilmember, entered the race just before the filing deadline after previously endorsing Bass. CalMatters described her as a progressive "in the mold of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani" who saw an opening with Bass weakened by criticism over the fire response.
Raman is backed by UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Shake Up LA network. Her platform centers on housing affordability, workers' rights, and alternative crisis response. A self-described democratic socialist, she had previously endorsed Bass when it appeared Bass would face a more conservative opponent.
Then there is Spencer Pratt.
Known for his role on MTV's The Hills, Pratt holds a political science degree from USC and grew up in Pacific Palisades. His home and his parents' home nearby were destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades fire. He has been displaced for over a year.
On January 7, 2026, exactly one year after the fire started, he announced his candidacy at a rally in Pacific Palisades called, "They Let Us Burn," organized by the Palisades Fire Residents Coalition.
"I never wanted to be mayor," he said at the rally. "But once you uncover everything, these people in charge should have resigned."
His platform is an outsider's checklist: audit billions spent on homelessness nonprofits (which he calls the "homeless industrial complex"), fully fund the LAPD, restore emergency preparedness and reservoir capacity, expose corruption in city contracts, and implement a back-to-basics city budget.
His campaign website frames the mission as "disinfecting the city with light."
As of early April polling, Pratt has surged into second place in the 14-candidate field, trailing only Bass, with roughly 40% of voters still undecided. Joe Rogan endorsed him on his April 15 podcast. The Hollywood Reporter covered the endorsement the following day.
The political establishment has mostly treated Pratt as a novelty. The polling says otherwise. But the more analytically interesting question isn't whether Pratt wins it's what his candidacy does to the arithmetic of who advances to November.
The mayoral race operates under the same 50% rule as the council races, but with 14 candidates it almost certainly produces a runoff. What matters in June is who finishes first and second. In a crowded field, margins between candidates can be a few thousand votes.
Pratt's candidacy is a live demonstration of the core argument of this entire article: in a low-turnout June primary, a candidate who activates voters who don't normally show up can move the outcome, regardless of what the political establishment thinks about his chances.
Pratt's base – fire victims, frustrated homeowners, voters who distrust City Hall on homelessness and public safety – overlaps heavily with the NPP and Republican voter universe that every other campaign in this cycle is ignoring.
If he mobilizes even a fraction of that universe in a 14-candidate field where second place is decided by tens of thousands of votes, he becomes a factor. Not because celebrity translates to governing competence, but because turnout math doesn't care about conventional wisdom.
For independent and Republican voters who share concerns about homelessness management, public safety, and city competence, the June primary is their chance to shape who the two November finalists are, and Pratt is making an unusually direct pitch to exactly that audience.
City Attorney: A Policy Fight in Legal Clothing
Incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto faces three challengers.
The most organized is Marissa Roy, the Shake Up LA-endorsed deputy attorney general who has built her platform around using the city attorney's office as a tool for tenant protection, worker rights, and civil rights litigation. Roy has litigated against companies that exploited workers and has challenged both the Trump administration and major tech companies in court.
The city attorney oversees all litigation involving the city and advises the mayor and council on legal matters. It is not a legislative seat, but its posture shapes how the city responds to everything from landlord-tenant disputes to federal enforcement actions.
Other challengers include human rights attorney Aida Ashouri and a deputy district attorney. This race will likely go to November, but which candidate finishes second in June shapes the fall.
City Controller: The Fiscal Watchdog Race
Incumbent Kenneth Mejia is running again. He has made the office a platform for fiscal transparency, repeatedly spotlighting unspent public funds and questionable city expenditures, including approximately $80.4 million in idle special funds.
This tends to resonate with voters less interested in ideological combat than in whether the city manages its money responsibly. That is a significant portion of the independent voter universe.
The Structural Problem No One Is Addressing
The DSA's organizing model is disciplined and proven. Door-to-door canvassing, postcard programs, coordinated small-dollar fundraising, digital mobilization it's all active and running now.
The voters being reached are largely already registered Democrats who align ideologically with the slate of socialists. The goal is to make sure they return a ballot in June rather than waiting for November.
What makes this cycle unusual isn't just the DSA's organizational strength. It's the absence of any comparable civic infrastructure reaching the other side of the electorate.
Spencer Pratt's candidacy may be the closest thing to an accidental proof of concept. His fire-recovery videos went viral not because of his reality TV past but because they spoke directly to something hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles voters feel and no establishment candidate had been willing to say plainly.
In a 14-candidate race with 40% of voters undecided, that kind of organic connection to a disaffected audience is worth paying attention to not because the celebrity factor is the point, but because it illustrates exactly what happens when someone gives voters outside the Democratic base a reason to show up.
There are tens of thousands of eligible voters, including independents, third-party registrants, and Republicans who tend to sit out June primaries just because no one is talking to them. And most of them don't realize that in several of these races, June is the only election that matters.
