Los Angeles voted Mayor Karen Bass out of office on November 3, 2026, and in her first public remarks since conceding she called the mayoralty the greatest honor possible.
Bass lost to Nithya Raman. Speaking at an event in Vernon, California, days after a fire in the area, she did not frame the result as a judgment on her record.
“The voters made a decision and democracy prevails,” she said. “There was a wave and these waves happen.” She described it as a change wave, the kind that comes when “people are just frustrated.”
She wished her successor well by name. “I wish Nithya Raman the best of wishes because I have always been and will continue to be about the city of Los Angeles,” she said.
Asked whether she would go back into politics, Bass said it was “doubtful.”
“I have spent my entire life devoted to service, never thinking about what do I want to do personally,” she said. She called the office “the culmination of a life’s work.”
A Black woman in executive office is often treated as though one election settles whether she ever belonged there. Bass gave the counter herself, and it put the work first and the title last.
