Karen Bass promised to end street homelessness in Los Angeles by 2026.
She didn't.
Now voters are about to hand the mayor's office to someone standing even further to her Left – and Ron DeSantis just said exactly what that means.
The City That Keeps Choosing Failure
DeSantis weighed in Monday after election results confirmed that City Councilmember Nithya Raman – a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America – will face Bass in the November runoff for mayor of America's second-largest city.
"Leftist cities that have been governed by failed ideologies and plagued with crime, homelessness, decay and administrative incompetence need to change course," DeSantis wrote on X.
He added that change cannot happen "if the only other option is a candidate more ideologically left and even less administratively competent."
That's not a talking point.
That's a diagnosis.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2063723866623488314?s=20
When CNN pressed Bass on her 2023 promise to Jake Tapper – that she would end street homelessness by 2026 – she admitted she hadn't come close and blamed "bureaucratic barriers."
Los Angeles spent nearly four years and billions of dollars on her Inside Safe program.
Forty percent of participants ended up back on the streets.
A Socialist with a Harvard Degree and No Solutions
Raman is everything Bass is not – younger, further left, and backed by the same DSA machine that put Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayor's office.
She was the first DSA-endorsed candidate ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council, winning in 2020 on a defund-the-police platform.
Then she voted repeatedly to expand the LAPD budget.
She championed tenant protections – then flipped on the city's luxury real estate tax under developer pressure.
She was censured by her own DSA chapter for accepting an endorsement from a pro-Israel group.
Even the socialists don't fully trust her.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2064090141484830917?s=20
DSA-LA declined to endorse her for mayor.
What Raman has been consistent on: opposing ordinances that ban homeless encampments near schools.
She was one of three council members who voted against the 2022 ban on encampments within 500 feet of schools and day care centers.
That's not a progressive position.
That's a failure of basic governance dressed up in academic language.
DeSantis Has Seen This Movie Before
Florida's governor didn't wade into this race by accident.
He's watched the same cycle play out in city after city – Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle – where Democrats respond to the failure of leftist governance by reaching further left for the next candidate.
The pattern is always the same.
The excuses are always the same.
Bass blamed bureaucracy.
Before her, Eric Garcetti blamed the state.
Before him, Antonio Villaraigosa blamed the economy.
Decades of Democrat mayors, billions of dollars, tens of thousands of Angelenos still sleeping on sidewalks – and the city's answer is to put a DSA member one step closer to the office.
DeSantis built Florida into the proof of concept that the opposite works.
Low taxes, aggressive law enforcement, no tolerance for the ideology that turned Los Angeles into an open-air disaster zone.
His cities don't look like skid row.
His constituents aren't stepping over tents on the way to work.
What This Race Actually Tells You
Democrats keep asking why people are leaving California.
The answer is on the ballot in November.
A mayor who promised to fix homelessness couldn't.
So the city's response is to nominate someone who voted to keep encampments next to kindergartens.
That's not a new direction.
That's the same cliff, faster.
DeSantis didn't have to say much.
He just had to point.
Sources:
- Ron DeSantis, post on X, June 9, 2026.
- Kennedy Owens, "DeSantis weighs in as shifting L.A. mayoral forecasts fuel national debate," Florida Voice News, June 8–9, 2026.
- "Karen Bass grilled over broken homelessness promise, blames bureaucracy for slowed progress," Fox News, May 2026.
- "Spencer Pratt seizes on homelessness remarks by Karen Bass, blasts Democrat for failures," Fox News, May 2026.
- "LA Mayor's Inside Safe program failing to keep people housed, 40% returning to streets," Davis Vanguard, April 9, 2026.
