On election day, Karen Bass sought to weaken Nithya Raman’s insurgent mayoral campaign by highlighting a series of controversial moments and apparent missteps from her rival’s campaign trail.

Democrats Bass and Raman are competing to become Los Angeles mayor after both advanced past Spencer Pratt in the city’s jungle primary.

The incumbent used one of her final appeals to voters to criticize Raman’s repeated campaign gaffes as the councilmember tried to unseat her.

“Throughout this campaign, Nithya has shown that she is not ready to lead a city as big and complex as Los Angeles,” Bass wrote. “Angelenos deserve a mayor with a clear vision, a proven plan, and the experience to deliver results.”

The video released by Bass featured interviews and debate clips in which Raman appeared to struggle to provide coherent answers to questions.

In one exchange, Raman was asked to name a police chief she admired but was unable to give an immediate response.

Raman later said she had been “in a fugue state” during the debate and could not recall what had taken place.

Bass also criticized Raman for backing a policy associated with former Police Chief Daryl Gates, whom Raman herself has described as “abhorrent and racist.”

Raman has previously defended her position by saying she supported Special Order 40, which bars LAPD officers from using a person’s immigration status as the basis for initiating an investigation.

Gates, meanwhile, faced widespread criticism over his response to Los Angeles’ destructive 1992 Rodney King riots, which ultimately led to his resignation.

Raman later reversed course, calling her reference to Gates a “mistake” and saying she had “fumbled” her point, frustrating both progressives and conservatives.

Bass’s video also included a clip that appeared to show Raman referring to both Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell as “fascist liars.”

Raman has said she was referring instead to Donald Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as fascists and liars.

“I’m ready to keep building on our progress and delivering for every Angeleno,” Bass said at the conclusion of the video.

The Daily Mail contacted Raman’s campaign for comment.

Bass has also faced criticism over her handling of major Los Angeles issues, including wildfires, homelessness, public safety and the delivery of basic city services.

Polls show Raman has overcome a double-digit deficit in the race with Bass to pull into a neck-and-neck matchup. 

Raman launched her candidacy just hours before the filing deadline in February, and she had even endorsed Bass for re-election weeks before.

Bass herself called Raman’s challenge a ‘surprise’ at the time, but Raman surged after defeating former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary election in June and taking Bass to a run-off. 

A poll last week from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the LA Times found both Bass and Raman in a tie at 40 percent support each. 

Another poll in September from the LA Times gave Raman a surprising 11 point lead over Bass, with most analysts anticipating a tight election when voters head to the ballot box on November 3.

Facing the prospect of being kicked out of office, Bass warned on Sunday that Raman would plunge Los Angeles into anarchy if she is elected. 

Bass told supporters that Raman would drive LAPD officers out of the city and trigger federal authorities to meddle in the hosting of the 2028 Olympics. 

‘I think four years under Nithya Raman would present a tremendous amount of chaos,’ Bass told the California Post when she voted alongside her family. 

She warned Raman’s tenure would be ‘chaos from day one’, and said the socialist’s agenda would upend the city’s safety and policing.

The incumbent mayor cited Raman’s campaign promise to fire LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell if she is elected, which Bass said would cause a wave of officers to follow him out of the department. 

‘I don’t think she has a clue what it takes to get a police chief for the nation’s second-largest city,’ Bass said.

‘The minute she would initiate that, you will have officers leaving the department, and confusion sets in anytime they’re gonna sit around and wait to see who is going to lead them.’

Gov. Kathy Hochul was on course for re-election Tuesday, defeating Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, to secure a second full four-year term.

The Associated Press called the race for Hochul just five minutes after polls closed at 9 p.m. The announcement came as Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised the governor at New York Democrats’ election night gathering at the Hilton hotel in Midtown.

Hochul is likely to face immediate pressure from the party’s left flank — including Mamdani and his Democratic Socialists of America allies — to embrace their “tax the rich” agenda when the new legislative session begins in January.

The socialist mayor endorsed Hochul and campaigned alongside her in New York City during the final days of the race, seemingly giving the incumbent a late boost among his supporters.

Unlike several months earlier, Hochul declined to take a firm position against tax increases. She also sidestepped questions about whether she would provide Mamdani with additional state support next year, after helping him during his first budget with measures that included a pied-a-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City.

Blakeman made the issue a central campaign theme. On Friday, he signed a “no new taxes” pledge and challenged Hochul to make the same commitment.

Throughout the campaign, the Long Island politician and ally of President Trump repeatedly criticized Hochul over New York’s soaring cost of living, as well as Democratic policies on energy and immigration.

Blakeman’s message, however, failed to win over the broad coalition of independent voters and disaffected Democrats he needed in a state where 48% of registered voters are Democrats.

Polling showed Hochul gaining ground in the final weeks before Election Day. Blakeman’s strongest showing — a nine-point deficit for Hochul in a Siena University poll conducted in September — was followed by a 14-point Hochul lead in a survey released by the pollster last week.

Yet the same poll found that just 41% of New Yorkers believe the Empire State is moving in the “right direction.” That figure was nearly unchanged from the 39% recorded when Siena asked the question in October 2022, one month before Hochul won her first full term.

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That year, Hochul faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from then-Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, defeating him by only six percentage points.

Blakeman’s campaign failed to build comparable momentum. He lacked name recognition outside Long Island, while Hochul repeatedly sought to link him to Trump.

After Trump’s 2024 victory underscored Democrats’ vulnerability among voters frustrated by the high cost of living — including in affluent, heavily Democratic states such as New York — Hochul centered her re-election platform on “affordability.”

Free “rebate” checks, no-cost school meals and billions of dollars in child-care subsidies formed the foundation of Hochul’s campaign, along with initiatives such as a ban on cellphones in schools.

She also focused on several of the year’s most prominent issues, including data centers and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. Her response included a hastily assembled one-year moratorium on new data centers and approval of a series of sanctuary-state measures intended to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Several controversies from Hochul’s first five years in office failed to resurface as major campaign issues. They included allegations of bid-rigging involving an $11 billion home-care program, the resignation of her press secretary amid sexual harassment allegations and a number of disputed state contract awards.

The victory capped four years of difficult — and at times notably awkward — political maneuvering by Hochul, who assumed the governorship after Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual misconduct scandal in 2021.

Hochul, who was widely blamed — including by senior Democrats — for the party’s losses in the 2022 midterm elections, had to navigate Trump’s return to the White House, Mayor Eric Adams’ turbulent tenure in New York City and the emergence of Mamdani.

Her uneasy and, at times, divisive endorsement of Mamdani after his primary victory over Cuomo last year helped establish a public truce between the two politicians. That relationship ultimately assisted Hochul in fending off a left-wing challenge from her estranged lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.

Hochul eventually selected former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her running mate for lieutenant governor.

The four-year term secured by the pair will run through 2030, marking over nine years since she first took office. Should she complete the term, Hochul’s tenure would be roughly as long as Cuomo’s 10 years and eight months in office.

The Buffalo-area native is the the first upstate Democrat to serve as governor since Grover Cleveland in 1885 and the first female governor – or first “mom” governor, as she’s often called herself.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WLS) — ABC News projects that Gov. JB Pritzker has defeated Republican challenger Darren Bailey in a rematch of the Illinois governor’s race.

Both Pritzker and Bailey spent Election Day appealing to voters across Illinois and urging their supporters to turn out as the gubernatorial contest reached its final hours.

Pritzker, seeking a third term, projected confidence while emphasizing the importance of voting. Bailey urged his supporters to cast ballots as he pursued what he had described as an upset victory.

Pritzker started the day by greeting voters at Chicago’s 95th Street Red Line station.

“Have you voted yet?” Pritzker asked one voter. “You make sure to today: We really need you.”

The governor cited strong early-voting figures and said Democrats remained energized as the campaign entered its final stretch.

“You’ve seen early vote is crushing it. Democrats, I think, are motivated, energetic. We’ve got to push back on Washington. We’ve got to send a message here in Illinois; people want change in Washington,” Pritzker said.

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Bailey spent part of the day at a Metra station in Palatine, distributing voter cards before heading to southern Illinois to meet supporters and watch the returns.

“It’s election day, and you know, if you think that your vote doesn’t count, yet you’re frustrated with the status quo just please get out and vote. We’ve had 23 years of the same party rule and it’s time for change,” Bailey said.

Later, Pritzker made the traditional Election Day visit to Manny’s Deli, posing for photos with voters and speaking with Democratic elected officials and candidates.

Bailey continued to express optimism, saying Illinois voters were ready to take the state in a new direction.

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