⏱️ Read Time: 5–6 minutes
Our afternoon columns are typically for paid subscribers. Here you get about 18% of this column above the paywall — which is the breaking news piece. All of the smart analysis (if I do say so) is below the paywall…
Los Angeles just got a jolt. Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, a financial heavyweight with an estimated net worth of $115 million, has declared his candidacy for mayor in 2026. In an interview with Southern California News Group, he didn’t hold back—calling LA “adrift” and blasting Mayor Karen Bass for failures on affordability, safety, and basic governance. “We’re done talking about problems—we need to solve them,” Beutner said, casting himself as the pragmatist who can lead a turnaround.
What Beutner brings is more than money. He helped steer LAUSD through the chaos of COVID-19, launched a nonprofit to give glasses to low-income kids, and passed Proposition 28 to boost arts education. He’s been deputy mayor, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, and a private equity leader at Blackstone and Evercore. His entry transformed what had been a sleepy 2026 contest, posing a direct challenge to Bass and injecting urgency into the city’s future.
But it also complicates the path for Rick Caruso. The billionaire developer, who spent over $100 million on his failed 2022 mayoral run, has been eyeing either a rematch or a gubernatorial campaign. Beutner’s move may block a second run—pushing Caruso to look north to Sacramento.
Austin Beutner just dropped a political grenade on the 2026 LA mayor’s race — and the fallout could reshape everything. Below the paywall, I lay out how his entry puts Karen Bass on the defensive, throws Rick Caruso’s next move into question, and scrambles the future of LA’s leadership.
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