Hundreds of Angelenos gathered at Playa Vista Central Park’s Bandshell on Thursday evening to support California representative Karen Bass’ mayoral campaign who was joined by Senator Bernie Sanders.
Bass, who is running against billionaire Rick Caruso in this race, hosted a rally with Sanders as a guest speaker, and other community leaders and influencers to gain support for her campaign.
Doors to the event opened at 5 p.m. and onlookers began trickling in within an hour and a half before the rally began.
Attendee Eric Chavez stated he didn’t know much about Bass saying, “I came because I am not familiar with her values or her goals for the city.”
Planned Parenthood, Youth for Karen Bass, and USC Democrats were among a wide variety of organizations that endorsed and rallied in support of Bass.
Each speaker was granted stage time to tell the public about why they think voters should elect Bass for mayor rather than Caruso.
Bass’ political party affiliations were a popular point made throughout the evening. Bass has been registered as a Democrat for over 10 years and Caruso, a longtime Republican, registered as a Democrat in 2022.
Speakers went on to criticize Caruso’s campaign funding, stating he has spent over $90 million on advertising. They compared it to Bass’ campaign, which presents itself as a grassroots campaign.
Music performances were also brought forth by the campaign. Mariachi Magnolia, a locally run female-owned music group, and ICYOLA, a youth orchestra organization, both got the crowd dancing and singing along prior to Bass’ and Sander’s speeches.
In the large crowd of supporters, much of Bernie’s merchandise could be seen; amongst them was supporter Sonia Rodriguez Flores who voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary presidential election.
When asked what brought her out to the event, Flores stated, “I am not part of it (Bass’ campaigning group). I was a big Bernie supporter.”
This appeared to be the case for a lot of people present in the crowd.
Sanders took to the stage for approximately 25 minutes and openly endorsed Bass for mayor of Los Angeles.
He took time to discuss his aversion to Caruso and other billionaires professing, “You know what these billionaires are addicted to? They’re addicted to greed.”
After two hours of energetic rallying, the event came to a close.