Among the true believers was someone who arrived late that day: L.A.\u2019s original democratic socialist insurgent, Nithya Raman.<\/p>\n
She shocked the city\u2019s political class in 2020<\/a> by beating Councilmember David Ryu \u2014 the first time in 17 years that an incumbent lost their seat. Her upset blazed the way for Hernandez and Soto-Mart\u00ednez in 2022<\/a> and fellow DSAer Ysabel Jurado in 2024. They\u2019ve created a progressive bloc that has helped Mayor Karen Bass implement her agenda, offering Her Honor cover from critics on the left while also pushing for democratic socialist principles such as less police spending and more intervention programs.<\/p>\n Raman kept a low profile at the DSA-LA event, according to attendees. The 44-year-old listened to her colleagues\u2019 speeches and those of other hopefuls, made small talk with fellow members and then left. <\/p>\n There was no hint that afternoon of the political earthquake she uncorked this Saturday, when Raman announced a mayoral run against longtime ally Bass. The council member described the mayor to The Times as an \u201cicon\u201d<\/a> who nevertheless needs to be replaced because \u201cLos Angeles is at a breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n I can only imagine Bass \u2014 whom Raman publicly endorsed just a month ago \u2014 was surprised.<\/p>\n The mayor seems vulnerable, for sure. From her handling of the Palisades fire to crumbling infrastructure to the economy and so much more, critics maintain Bass spent all of last year living up to the old Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams duet: She did things too much, too little and too late. This was all before sources told The Times last week<\/a> that Bass ordered an after-action report on the Palisades fire be \u2014 no pun intended \u2014 watered down to limit legal liability against the city. <\/p>\n Her supporters point to a drop in homelessness and homicides over the last four years as reason enough for Bass to return \u2014 but their hosannas haven\u2019t gotten as much traction as an incumbent should be seeing at this point in a reelection campaign. That\u2019s why the proverbial smart money had someone on the right side of L.A.\u2019s Democratic spectrum mounting a strong challenge this year \u2014 Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez or Traci Park, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath or even 2022 challenger Rick Caruso<\/a>. <\/p>\n While Mamdani\u2019s fall win got local progressives dreaming about one day doing the same in Los Angeles, the prospect of a strong challenger from the left in this mayoral cycle was considered so unlikely that DSA-LA didn\u2019t have candidate Rae Huang \u2014 a dues-paying member and Presbyterian minister \u2014 speak at the Immanuel gathering since she couldn\u2019t gather enough signatures to make her case for an endorsement in the fall.<\/p>\n Raman has proved effective enough as a council member to win her reelection outright two years ago during the primaries<\/a> despite a well-funded effort to paint her as a limousine leftist. I admire her brio to take on Bass and respect her place in L.A. political history. I\u2019m glad someone is going to make the mayor work hard to get reelected because no incumbent should ever have an automatic reelection.<\/p>\n But Nithya Raman?<\/p>\n Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, left, talks with Mayor Karen Bass at Hazeltine Park in Sherman Oaks during a 2024 rally for Raman\u2019s ultimately successful reelection bid. She\u2019s now challenging Bass in the 2026 mayoral election.<\/p>\n (Mel Melcon\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Presbyterians, such as those who pray at the Koreatown church, have historically believed in predestination, the idea that God has determined everyone\u2019s fate and we can\u2019t do a thing about it. Raman doesn\u2019t belong to the denomination, but perhaps its tenets moved her at Immanuel into believing that another unlikely political revival is in her stars. Because that\u2019s the only way to make sense of Raman\u2019s turn and belief that she can pull off the victory.<\/p>\n Raman\u2019s 4th District is one of the wealthier in the city, a mishmash of Encino rich, Silver Lake hipster and the San Fernando Valley lower middle class \u2014 relatively sheltered from the day-to-day struggles of many working class and working poor Angelenos living in L.A. While Soto-Mart\u00ednez and Hernandez draw their perspective and base from the union and activist left, Raman\u2019s loudest supporters have struck me as folks who might have the passion and money to win over her district but don\u2019t have the street-level knowledge and experience to sell their candidate to all corners of the city.<\/p>\n Raman has walked the progressive walk during her two council terms by getting arrested at sit-ins, showing up to protests and through her City Hall work. But the coalition she needs to topple Bass seems exceedingly hard to build.<\/p>\n She\u2019d have to run under the assumption that enough people on the left think the current mayor is a sellout \u2014 or at minimum, just not progressive enough. That conservative and centrist voters so loathe Bass that they\u2019ll hold their nose and vote for a democratic socialist. She\u2019d have to win over Latino voters, who went with Caruso four years ago but who represent only 19% of Raman\u2019s district in a city that\u2019s nearly majority Latino.<\/p>\n Raman would have to peel off labor from Bass, who has counted on and rewarded their support from Sacramento to Washington to City Hall for over two decades. Needs to paint Bass as soft on Trump\u2019s deportation deluge despite her consistently calling him out<\/a>. Appeal to homeowners who won\u2019t like Raman\u2019s ties to YIMBY-minded folks seeking to shove multistory units anywhere and everywhere. Convince Black voters \u2014 who already must reckon with the likely reality that the city will not have three Black council members for the first time since 1963 because the leading candidates to replace outgoing Curren Price are Latinos \u2014 that dethroning the city\u2019s first Black female mayor is somehow good for the community\u2019s political future.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Raman\u2019s fellow DSA members. The rank-and-file are currently furious at her for recently, unsuccessfully trying to tweak L.A.\u2019s so-called mansion tax<\/a>. Raman can\u2019t run in the primary with DSA\u2019s endorsement because that process ended last fall. Supporters can petition for a vote on the matter, but that opens her anew to critics who engineered a censure of her<\/a> during her 2024 reelection campaign for accepting an endorsement by a pro-Israel group while the country was bombing Gaza.<\/p>\n Raman \u2014 who can keep her council seat if she doesn\u2019t beat Bass \u2014 is about to find out that L.A. isn\u2019t as progressive as people make it out to be. <\/p>\n Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman speaks to a crowd as she hosts an election night event in Edendale in March 2024 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n (Myung Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n She might have visions of a populist movement a la what happened in New York ushering her into City Hall \u2014 but she\u2019s no Mamdani and Bass is no Eric Adams. Even fans of Raman I talked to over the weekend are upset that the progressive march that DSA-LA has successfully launched in city and county politics this decade now must deal with a curveball from within. It threatens to distract from efforts for other campaigns in a year when the left needs to concentrate on defeating true opponents \u2014 not a fellow traveler like Bass.<\/p>\n Raman must figure this disruption is worth the risk for her legacy and will further strengthen L.A.\u2019s left. Let\u2019s see what voters decide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the last day of January, hundreds of people filled the pews of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[81668,12858,1409,81669,32662,26686,45533,49479,81666,48,52,51,81667,47,50,49,63,4415,80054,24881,72],"class_list":["post-170313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-4th-district","tag-bass","tag-city","tag-city-hall-work","tag-council-member","tag-endorsement","tag-eunisses-hernandez","tag-hugo-soto-martinez","tag-l-a-politic","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-left-while","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mayor","tag-nithya-raman","tag-supporter","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Los](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770640392_334_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Nithya](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770640393_338_.jpeg\")
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