Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner to challenge Karen Bass in LA mayoral race

Austin Beutner running for LA mayor

Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner announced his campaign for LA mayor, challenging Bass in 2026.

LOS ANGELES - Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner announced his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on Monday, setting up a challenge to incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the June 2026 election.

What we know:

Beutner, 65, served as the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2018 to 2021 and as a deputy mayor under former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa from 2010 to 2013. 

His recent criticism of Mayor Bass centers on what he calls a "failure of leadership" during the Palisades Fire, which damaged his own home and destroyed his mother-in-law's. 

Beutner's entry into the race comes as developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022, is also considering a 2026 run and has been a vocal critic of the mayor's fire response.

What they're saying:

In his campaign video, Beutner says, "I'll never accept the Trump administration's assault on our values and our neighbors. Targeting people solely based on the color of their skin is unacceptable and un-American."

Beutner said he's running because he believes the city has a crisis in affordability. 

"People can't find housing. We built the fewest number of housing units in more than a decade. I'm running because it's a more and more difficult place to live. I think those are the issues we need to talk about," Beutner said on FOX 11 News. 

Other issues he's focusing on include homelessness and public safety. 

"I know from LA Fire Department statistics that each year, Mayor Bass' term, responses or calls for people experiencing homelessness has gone up. That's truth. You can't fudge that data. That's truth. More and more resources are going to serve people experiencing homelessness. I know that we're spending billions of dollars with no public accounting. The mayor is spending millions of dollars to fight our elected city controller, who wants to come in and say, ;what have we spent money on? Are we getting impact?; And I know from press reports that the city spent $25 million for a hotel five years ago that hasn't housed a single person. So let's have that conversation. Public safety. We know, and the facts will tell us that crimes are being solved at the lowest rate in more than a decade, barely 1 in 20 property crimes, meaning a burglary gets solved. Only a bit more than one third of violent crimes get solved. So don't tell me it's safer when the statistics tell us it's not."

Austin Beutner to run for LA mayor

Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner announced his candidacy for mayor today with a four-minute video released on Youtube.

The other side:

A spokesman for Mayor Bass, Doug Herman, defended her record in a statement, saying, "when Karen Bass ran for mayor, homelessness and public safety were the top concerns of Angelenos. And she has delivered in a big way... today, homelessness has decreased two consecutive years for the first time in Los Angeles. Thousands of people have been moved off our streets and into housing. Violent crime is down across the city. Homicides have decreased to their lowest levels in 60 years."

Beutner responded to the city's after-action report on the fire, stating, "When you have broken hydrants, a reservoir that's broken and is out of action, broken [fire] trucks that you can't dispatch ahead of time, when you don't pre-deploy at the adequate level, when you don't choose to hold over the Monday firefighters to be there on Tuesday to help fight the fire -- to me, it's a failure of leadership." He added, "at the end of the day, the buck stops with the mayor."

Race for 2026

What's next:

The political landscape for the 2026 election is beginning to take shape. 

With both Beutner and potentially Caruso challenging her, Bass will be working to build on her administration's momentum.

RELATED: Rick Caruso says he's considering possible run for LA mayor or California governor

The campaign will likely continue to center on key issues like homelessness and public safety, with the Palisades fire being a central point of contention.