For a few fleeting hours, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass seemed to be facing a clear path to reelection, after several high-powered challengers pulled out or declined to enter the race.
But just three hours before the filing deadline, progressive City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a onetime Bass ally, launched a mayoral bid, shocking the city’s political establishment and upending the race. Her candidacy poses the most serious threat yet to Bass, who for the last year has faced bruising criticism over her handling of the devastating Palisades fire.
On Saturday, Raman portrayed the city government as unable to tackle high housing costs, fix broken streetlights or address the stubborn homelessness crisis. City agencies, she said, “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
“Los Angeles is at a breaking point, and people feel it in the most basic ways,” she said after submitting her candidate paperwork at the City Clerk’s Office.
Raman, 44, who had previously endorsed the mayor’s reelection bid, called Bass “an icon” and someone she deeply admires. But she said the city needs a change agent to address its many problems.
“I have deep respect for Mayor Bass. We’ve worked closely together on my biggest priorities and her biggest priorities, and there’s significant alignment there,” Raman, who lives in Silver Lake, told The Times earlier in the day. “But over the last few months in particular, I’ve really begun to feel like unless we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles, that the things we count on are not going to function anymore.”
Unlike some other local politicians and mayoral candidates, Raman had not publicly criticized Bass about the Palisades fire. That began to change on Saturday, with Raman saying the city needs a mayor who will “prepare for emergencies before they happen.”
Bass, a former state and federal lawmaker, now faces the toughest reelection fight of her career.
Raman was the first City Council member to be elected with support from the Democratic Socialists of America, which scored an enormous victory last fall with the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
At the same time, Raman has deep ties to leaders in the YIMBY movement, who have pushed for the city to boost housing production by upzoning single-family neighborhoods and rewriting Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which applies to property sales of $5.3 million or more.
“To see a legitimate challenge from the left [from] Raman signals to all Angelenos that behind closed doors, the Bass administration is unraveling, far from the polished image it has tried to project,” said Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani.
In a statement, Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman defended the mayor’s record, saying she has led the fight for more police, sped up the approval of 40,000 units of affordable housing, reduced street homelessness and stood up to the Trump administration during his “cruel attacks” on immigrants.
“The last thing Los Angeles needs is a politician who opposed cleaning up homeless encampments and efforts to make our city safer,” Herman said. “Mayor Bass will continue changing L.A. by building on her track record delivering L.A.‘s first sustained decrease in street homelessness, a 60-year low in homicides, and the most aggressive agenda our city has ever seen to make our city more affordable.”
Raman’s eleventh-hour entry into the June 2 primary caps what has been the most turbulent candidate filing period for an L.A. mayoral election in at least a generation.
After a series of last-minute shifts, the field seemed to be clear of big-name challengers. Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner ended his campaign Thursday, citing the recent death of his 22-year-old daughter. That same day, billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022, reaffirmed his decision not to run.
Then, on Friday night, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who had hinted at a possible mayoral run, announced she would stick with her current job.
Bass, 72, faces about 40 other opponents, the vast majority of them unknowns who pose little threat, though a few have the potential to break through with voters.
Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has focused heavily on the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his home. He said Saturday that Raman, who has held city office for more than five years, would not bring change as mayor.
“Same failed ideas, same excuses,” he said.
Another democratic socialist, Rae Huang, is challenging the mayor from her political left, calling for more public housing and for a reduction in the number of police officers, with the cost savings poured into other city services.
Brentwood tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who has described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said the city is on a downward trajectory and needs stronger management. The nonprofit executive plans to tap his personal wealth to jump-start his campaign.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, left, accepts the endorsement of Mayor Karen Bass at Hazeltine Park in Sherman Oaks in 2024.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
At City Hall, Raman’s entrance into the mayor’s race was a bombshell, in part because of her long-standing political ties with Bass.
In December 2022, not long after taking office, Bass launched her Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors, in Raman’s district.
Two years later, while running for reelection, Raman prominently featured Bass on at least a dozen of her campaign mailers and door hangers. Raman’s campaign produced a video ad that heavily excerpted Bass’ remarks endorsing her at a Sherman Oaks get-out-the-vote rally.
Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, ultimately won reelection with 50.7% of the vote. In the years that followed, she continued to praise Bass’ leadership.
Bass supporters pointed to that race in expressing a sense of betrayal about Raman’s decision to challenge someone who had helped her stay in office.
Kerman Maddox, a Bass friend and political advisor, said the mayor “fought hard” to make sure Raman won her reelection fight. When the Los Angeles County Democratic Party was preparing to endorse Raman’s opponent, Bass supporters stepped in and rallied for her, Maddox said.
“So how does Nithya Raman show her gratitude?” he said. “She takes out papers to run against Mayor Bass, the same Mayor who saved Nithya when she was in the political fight of her life.”
In November at a DSA election night watch party for Mamdani in Highland Park, Raman told The Times that Bass is “the most progressive mayor we’ve ever had in L.A.”
Last month, Bass formally announced that she had secured Raman’s endorsement, featuring her in a list of a dozen San Fernando Valley supporters.
An urban planner who headed the Time’s Up Entertainment campaign against sexual misconduct, Raman first ran for City Council in 2020, promising to put in place stronger tenant protections and provide a more effective, humane approach to combating homelessness.
Raman, who chairs the council’s Housing and Homelessness committee, championed just-cause eviction protections and worked to strengthen the city’s rent stabilization ordinance.
In 2023, she and other DSA-backed council members voted against a package of police raises, arguing that they would trigger cuts to other core services.
If Raman loses her bid for mayor, she would retain her City Council seat, since she does not face reelection until 2028.
Raman’s entry into the race came as a surprise to many of her colleagues. On Friday, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez — one of Raman’s closest allies — offered strong praise for Bass, whom he endorsed last year.
“It’s been wonderful working with the mayor, and I say that genuinely,” he told The Times. “Working with someone, it’s about having transparent conversations, dialogue and working through the issues. That’s the relationship I have with the mayor.”
On Saturday, Soto-Martínez suggested he would stick with the mayor, even with Raman in the race.
“I usually don’t change my endorsement,” he said. “Once I’m with somebody, I’m with somebody.”
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