Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is cruising toward reelection despite being caught out of the country while wildfires burned 7 percent of her city — with a fire department she’d defunded.
California’s just-concluded primary elections show Democrats sweeping races across the state, even as Los Angeles descends into what federal prosecutors are calling an “endless” corruption scandal involving homeless services and child prostitution.
“On Election Night, we will have a good picture of the outcome of most contests, but it will take weeks to know the final results. This is normal.”
That’s California Secretary of State Shirley Weber announcing — the day after the election — that the state has counted just over half the expected ballots in a race with under 25 percent turnout. Final results won’t be known for weeks, Weber said.
Bass faced reporters after stepping off a plane from another continent while her city burned. She gave them unbroken catatonic silence when asked if she owed citizens an apology.
‘Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent whilst their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department’s budget?
@skydavidblevins questions the mayor of LA, Karen Bass, as she faces backlash regarding the California wildfires.https://t.co/Nkz8onjC7Vpic.twitter.com/WwRwp6Imqz— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 8, 2025
She’s now advancing to the general election by a comfortable margin. Democrat Socialists of America candidate Nithya Raman finished third with around 20 percent, after calling second-place finisher Spencer Pratt an “evil MAGA candidate.”
Skid Row keeps expanding. Firefighters at one mid-city station told reporters they go through six to ten doses of Narcan on a normal shift reviving overdose victims near MacArthur Park.
Federal prosecutors are finding a “constant flood” of corruption cases arising from Los Angeles homeless services. The New York Times allowed itself to notice an “endless child prostitution scandal” recruiting from the county foster care system.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna — known for announcing how much he “hates the mean racists at ICE” — appears set to advance to the general election by a comfortable margin, despite his department collapsing into “self dispatch” when the dispatch system fails.
The radically understaffed department is mandating massive blocks of overtime for deputies. The family of murdered Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer sued the county, claiming their son was too fatigued to defend himself against his killer.
State Senator Scott Wiener — who spent his career protecting sex offenders who target minors and bragging that “sexually active 12-year-olds in California can get their STD medications and abortions without mommy and daddy finding out” — is likely to win Nancy Pelosi’s House seat.
Going all Senatorial at Folsom pic.twitter.com/fFjagP5c96
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) September 29, 2024
State legislator Corey Jackson — author of California’s “anti-book ban” bill guaranteeing children in public schools a right to sexually explicit materials — is comfortably above 50 percent in his primary.
Republicans are taking some comfort from the governor’s race, with Steve Hilton holding a lead over career politician Xavier Becerra. But Hilton’s vote is far less than Becerra’s vote plus the votes for Democrat runners-up, including billionaire Tom Steyer, who sits in third place.
California Secretary of State Weber previously made headlines in 2010 when Kamala Harris “lost on election night, but won three weeks later” after the state counted new ballots several weeks after election day.
