Build, Baby, Build? California’s Hottest Races Are Battles About Housing.

In the recent mayoral race in Los Angeles, upstart candidate Nithya Raman led incumbent mayor Karen Bass by 11 points in a poll. Raman, an MIT-educated urban planner, focused on building more affordable housing, while Bass touted the over 10,000 units of affordable housing built during her tenure. However, Raman's campaign gained traction, making housing the central issue in the race.

In San Francisco, state Senator Scott Wiener is running for a congressional seat against city Supervisor Connie Chan. Wiener, a strong proponent of housing, has a record of passing laws to encourage more construction and making it harder for local opposition to block them. Chan, on the other hand, has a history of voting against housing and transit-related laws, citing concerns about displacement and protecting historical buildings.

A third of California renters, 1.5 million households, pay more than half their income on rent. The state has a housing deficit estimated to be anywhere from tens of thousands to over 3 million units, with only 80,000 new homes built annually compared to the needed 180,000.

The housing crisis in California affects a large portion of the population, with 22% of the nation's unhoused people living in the state. Despite the severity of the issue, local elected officials must often face backlash from constituents who oppose new buildings in their neighborhoods. Both Raman and Wiener's Democratic parties share the common goal of building more homes, but the debate revolves around what "affordable" truly means and the best approach to achieve it.