Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and comedian Adam Conover endorsed Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA 37) for Los Angeles mayor Thursday evening during a rally at Playa Vista Park.
Bass’ opponent, Rick Caruso, is behind by 3% of voters, with 34% preferring Bass to 31% for Caruso, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies’ poll.
Conover was a surprise guest at the rally. He emphasized that Caruso registered as a democrat weeks before he announced his bid for mayor and drew comparison between him and former president Donald Trump.
“Have you heard this one before? A right wing billionaire, real estate developer, runs for office and says that he alone can fix everything,” Conover said. “He refuses to release his full tax returns, and he has a suspiciously even tan.”
The “Adam Ruins Everything” star expressed that Bass knows how to address the housing crisis in LA and help reduce traffic in the city.
“Bass knows that to fix traffic and help us get around our city, we need public transportation that is free,” Conover said. “She knows that to solve homelessness, we need to increase mental health services and work with people one-on-one, not criminalize them and send them to prison.”
Sandars arrived at the end of the rally, and the Vermont senator said that millionaires and billionaires cannot relate to middle-class Americans because they do not understand the struggle of living paycheck-to-paycheck.
“This campaign is about whether we deal with the existential threat of climate change. We are looking at the last eight years as the warmest years on record with more droughts, more floods, more extreme weather disturbances,” Sanders said. “The Supreme Court of the United States said that women are too dumb to make their own decision. Well we say that the Supreme Court is woefully dumb in terms of their decision.”
When Bass spoke, she illustrated the struggles of Angelenos and addressed voter’s main concerns.
“Tonight, 40,000 Angelenos will go to bed on the street, and five of them might not wake up tomorrow. The cost of rent and the cost of living means working two or even three jobs and still barely getting by,” the congresswoman said.
“If we don’t win this election, we will return to the day of failed solutions, shelters and warehouses locking people up and criminalizing poverty.”
Bass has also received endorsements from Planned Parenthood, senator Alex Padilla and Long Beach City Councilmember Al Austin.
“What you see is what you get. I’m a lifelong, pro-choice Democrat, who has always been on your side,” Bass said. “When we win this race, we are going to get big things done together.”
The final day to vote for LA mayor and the 2022 midterm elections is Nov. 8.
