Former Los Angeles schools chief Austin Beutner, a longtime civic leader and philanthropist, formally launched his 2026 bid for mayor on Monday, presenting himself as the experienced problem-solver who can steer the city out of what he calls years of drift under incumbent Karen Bass.
Beutner, an investment banker turned public servant who led the Los Angeles Unified School District through the chaotic early months of the coronavirus pandemic, said he supported Bass in 2022 but believes the city can no longer afford “more of the same” after a string of crises, including this year’s deadly fires in Los Angeles County.
“L.A. is adrift,” Beutner said in his launch video. “It seems every day our city is becoming a more expensive, less safe and more difficult place to live. The city has spent billions to solve problems that have just become bigger problems: homelessness, the cost of housing, the loss of jobs and opportunity. We need a city government that delivers results, not excuses.”
Bass’s handling of the fires — from emergency response to rebuilding — left many residents frustrated and raised fresh doubts about City Hall’s preparedness for a new era of climate-driven disasters. Beutner has leaned into those concerns, arguing that Los Angeles needs a mayor used to running large, complex systems and making data-driven decisions in real time.
Though Bass has seen some political recovery by positioning herself against President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles amid protests over sweeping immigration raids, Beutner and his allies say symbolism cannot substitute for competent, day-to-day management of the nation’s second-largest city.
Bass’s campaign points to two consecutive annual drops in the official homelessness count, reduced violent crime and what it says is a historic low in homicides as evidence that her administration is working.
“Let’s move past divisive attacks and talk about accomplishments,” her strategist Douglas Herman said in a statement responding to Beutner’s announcement. “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. These achievements represent real progress for families in Los Angeles.”
Beutner’s advisers counter that Angelenos don’t feel that progress in their daily lives — and credit front-line service providers, not City Hall, for much of the improvement that has occurred. They argue that despite unprecedented spending on homelessness and housing, encampments remain visible in neighborhoods across the city and rents continue to squeeze working- and middle-class residents.
Beutner enters the race with a résumé unusual even by Los Angeles political standards. He co-founded Evercore Partners, a major financial services firm, before turning his focus to civic work as publisher of the Los Angeles Times and later superintendent of LAUSD, the second-largest school district in the country. From 2018 to 2021, he oversaw the district through a bruising teacher strike and the first phase of the pandemic, rapidly standing up online learning, distributing laptops and Wi-Fi, and organizing large-scale food distribution for families.
After leaving LAUSD, Beutner emerged as one of the state’s most visible education reformers. He wrote and helped pass Proposition 28, which guarantees roughly $1 billion a year for arts and music education statewide — a measure widely praised by teachers, parents and arts advocates. He later joined unions in suing the Los Angeles school district over its implementation of the arts funding, casting the fight as a matter of basic accountability to voters and students.
Beutner’s public service in Los Angeles stretches back more than a decade. Under President Bill Clinton, he worked on Russia policy at the State Department. In City Hall, he served as deputy mayor to Antonio Villaraigosa, overseeing key agencies and building a reputation as a hands-on manager focused on cutting red tape and making the city more responsive to businesses and residents.
In the 2026 race, Beutner will likely be cast against at least one other prominent Bass critic, billionaire mall developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022 and is weighing another run for mayor or a bid for governor. While Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat, is expected to pitch himself to centrist and moderate voters, Beutner is positioning his campaign as a progressive alternative rooted in public schools, neighborhood services and practical governance rather than party insider politics.
That profile could help him in deep-blue Los Angeles while still drawing a contrast with Bass, a fixture of Democratic politics whose career was forged in Sacramento and Washington before she moved into the mayor’s office.
For now, Beutner is betting that voters who once gave Bass a chance are ready to do what he says he did himself: acknowledge that the city’s problems have deepened, that the last four years have not delivered the promised turnaround — and that Los Angeles needs a mayor with a track record of running big institutions and delivering measurable results.
