LOS ANGELES — With just 28 days till election day, the Los Angeles mayor's race is heating up this week as leading candidates face off in debates that will highlight their diverging visions on issues such as public safety and homelessness.

The debates are taking on added importance with polls showing large numbers of voters haven't made up their minds, and with many voters expressing unfavorable views of incumbent Karen Bass.

"In this election cycle, debates are perhaps the most important because we have such a large swath of electorate that is still undecided," said Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College.

The verbal skirmishes begin Tuesday with the influential Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. hosting an evening debate between Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents the area.

The following evening, NBC4 and Telemundo 52 host a televised debate from the Skirball Center. The TV stations said just three of the 14 candidates — Bass, Raman and reality television personality Spencer Pratt — polled 5% or above in two reliable polls, the requirement to participate.

Pratt has waged much of his campaign on social media. He's also a registered Republican in a heavily Democratic city. Even though the mayor's race is nonpartisan, Sadhwani said Pratt will need to pitch himself as "a reasonable candidate who can reflect some of the core values of Angelenos."

In that vein, she said, Pratt needs to distance himself from President Donald Trump.

"I don't think Angelenos would be OK with having a mayor aligned with Trump," she said.

Pratt campaign officials didn't respond to a request for comment.

Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine, said that Pratt holds one advantage — his TV experience. Pratt gained fame on the MTV reality TV series "The Hills."

"He certainly knows his way around the camera," Schnur said. "So it's likely that he'll make strong presentation."

Another storyline will be the duel between Bass and Raman, who were allies until Raman decided to run for mayor just before the filing period closed.

While Bass and Raman will have to distinguish themselves from each other politically, the drama of their interaction will also focus on Raman's decision to jump into the race.

"How will they greet one another? With a handshake, a hug or a scowl? These are the dramas that the political nerds like myself love to look for," Sadhwani said.

The two debates reflect a winnowed field of mayoral hopefuls who are leading the pack both in polling and in money raised ahead of the June 2 primary. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote on June 2, the top two vote-getters will advance to a Nov. 3 runoff.

Mayoral candidates Rae Huang and Adam Miller criticized their exclusion from the KNBC/Telemundo debate. Both candidates have been ranked in polls, but neither one was able to meet the requirement of garnering at least 5% support in two reliable polls.

Huang received 8% in a poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, but garnered just 3% support in an Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics poll.

Huang, a progressive community activist, said she is performing well with younger voters, who are not traditionally polled as frequently since they are less likely to show up to vote. She also reported raising more than $250,000 since she joined the race in late 2025.

"The goal of my campaign is to bring in people who don't decide to always vote," she said. "This is just another demonstration of how the media gatekeeps who ends up getting elected and has a huge role in shaping the political environment we currently have."

Miller drew 6% in the Berkeley poll but failed to hit 5% in others. Miller, a tech entrepreneur who loaned his campaign $2.5 million, has asked NBC to reconsider its criteria for the debate, saying that the media company was relying heavily on old polls that don't accurately reflect the current field.

"KNBC has created a platform for the establishment to protect the status quo and exclude political outsiders at a time when an overwhelming number of Angelenos feel the city is on the wrong track and want a change," Miller said in a statement.

A spokesperson for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 said the debate inclusion criteria were determined April 14 and changing them now "would be inconsistent with the transparent process we set and applied uniformly to all candidates."

Schnur said that in a mayoral race with relatively little polling, NBC's requirements were difficult for lesser-known candidates to fulfill.

"Given the lack of recent polling, it seems like an unfortunate and arbitrary decision [not to include Huang or Miller]," he said. "It's not like the campaign for governor, where cramming 10 candidates on a stage becomes a circus."

Bass, asked about the debates while fielding questions at City Hall on Monday, said the candidate forums are an important part of an election campaign.

"But I also think that someone's track record is important, someone's ability to collaborate and someone's at least basic understanding of the government and how it works," she said. "All of those things are important, and it's incumbent upon me and everybody else running to communicate that."

Raman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

---------

—Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.