Billionaire Rick Caruso backs ex-rival Karen Bass for mayor

American billionaire property developer Rick Caruso said he will vote for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in next week’s election, backing the woman who beat him four years ago against City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who leads in the polls.

“For the love of LA, I must put the past behind me,” Caruso wrote in an Instagram post on Monday, eight days before the Nov. 3 vote. “Mayor Bass and I have certainly had our disagreements,” he said, but added that he had “seen firsthand her dedication, her willingness to work together” during the rebuilding of neighborhoods destroyed by last year’s wildfires.

Caruso stopped short of calling it a formal endorsement. “I will be casting my ballot for Mayor Karen Bass,” he said in a television interview. “I believe she is learning from her mistakes.”

He was blunter about her opponent. Raman, a two-term councilmember backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, has pledged to replace Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell if elected. Caruso, a former president of the city’s Police Commission, called her plans for the department “reckless and dangerous” and said she “is not ready for the job.” “This is no time to turn the LAPD into a laboratory for risky DSA social experimentation,” he wrote. He said removing the chief would hurt police morale ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games, which the city will host.

Bass’s campaign thanked Caruso and cited their “long history of working together to solve big problems.” Bass called Caruso and Steadfast LA, the nonprofit he set up to help wildfire victims rebuild, “an invaluable partner” in the recovery of Pacific Palisades.

A costly 2022 defeat

The support marks a turnaround in one of the most bruising rivalries in Los Angeles politics. Caruso spent about $104 million, nearly all of it his own money, on his 2022 campaign, the most ever spent on a Los Angeles mayoral race. Bass, then a member of Congress, won the November runoff. In January, Caruso said he would not run for mayor or for governor of California this year.

The relationship between the two softened after the January 2025 Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Caruso’s Palisades Village shopping center, which survived the fire after he hired private firefighters to protect it, reopened in August. He has credited Bass’s office with helping on permits and city resources.

Bass trails in polls

Bass, 73, finished first in the June 2 primary with 34.3% of the vote with 93% of ballots counted, ahead of Raman on 28.6% and former reality television star Spencer Pratt on 25.8%. Since then, the race has turned against her. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll of 2,150 likely voters, taken Sept. 15 to 20, put Raman ahead 39% to 28%, with a third of voters undecided. The same survey found that 56% of voters rated Bass’s handling of the Palisades fire as poor or very poor. Her campaign called it an “outlier poll.”

City Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the fire zone, has also said she will vote for Bass despite reservations.

Caruso, 67, built his fortune developing upscale open-air shopping centers in Southern California, including The Grove in Los Angeles and The Americana at Brand in Glendale, and has since moved into housing, offices and hotels. He is worth an estimated $7.1 billion. His father, Henry Caruso, founded the Dollar Rent A Car company.