{"id":522020,"date":"2026-11-07T19:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T19:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/522020\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T19:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T19:20:12","slug":"forget-the-standard-blue-wave-is-there-a-progressive-tide-playing-out-in-los-angeles-whittier-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/522020\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget the standard blue wave. Is there a progressive tide playing out in Los Angeles? \u2013 Whittier Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nithya Raman<\/a>. Marissa Roy<\/a>. Angela Gonzales-Torres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do those three names have in common?<\/p>\n

They all won, or appear likely to win, their respective races for Los Angeles mayor<\/a>, L.A. city attorney<\/a> and an L.A.-area congressional seat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re all democratic socialists.<\/p>\n

Much has been said about a \u201cblue wave\u201d<\/a> during these midterm elections<\/a> as Democratic candidates notched a number of wins across the country.<\/p>\n

But is there also a progressive wave taking hold?<\/p>\n

There may be a bit of that playing out \u2013 at least in the nation\u2019s second most populous city \u2013 though local political experts were careful not to make overly broad statements about the rest of the state or nation, and some downplayed the role of any one group, such as the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n

Democrats, in general, won many seats this election cycle, but across the country, progressive candidates did not win at any greater rate than moderate or mainstream Democrats, said Christian Grose, a political science professor and director of the USC Democracy and Fair Elections Lab.<\/p>\n

That said, looking at elections going back several years, Grose said the city of L.A. may be an outlier.<\/p>\n

Since Raman\u2019s first election to the City Council in 2020<\/a>, three more DSA-backed candidates have won seats on the L.A. council, as has progressive City Controller Kenneth Mejia<\/a> and now presumably Roy, who appears poised to win this week\u2019s L.A. city attorney\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn places like L.A., we are seeing people who are DSA or DSA-affiliated winning. That historically hasn\u2019t always been the case. \u2026 The city, I think, is moving in a direction that\u2019s more progressive than we\u2019ve had in a while,\u201d Grose said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think there\u2019s a bit of a (progressive) wave in L.A. \u2013 a wave within a wave,\u201d Grose added, though he couched his remarks by noting that a strong showing for progressive candidates in L.A. is, for now, still isolated to certain pockets within the city.<\/p>\n

In the mayoral race, for example, Raman fared much better in the eastern and central parts of the city, where many renters and young people live, while current L.A. Mayor Karen Bass had more support in South L.A. and western San Fernando Valley, Grose said.<\/p>\n

Jorge Flores, a Los Angeles-based public affairs consultant who used to work on Democratic campaigns, also was not ready to declare an outright progressive wave.<\/p>\n

Although there are examples in L.A. County of progressive candidates performing well in this election, there were also races where more moderate Democrats appeared on track to beat opponents that ran to the left of them, he countered.<\/p>\n

He cited as an example the state Senate District 26 race<\/a>, where Sara Hernandez<\/a> was ahead of Sarah Rasc\u00f3n<\/a> by about 9 percentage points as of Friday afternoon, Nov. 6. Both Hernandez and Rasc\u00f3n are Democrats, but the latter was recommended by DSA\u2019s local chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you have a DSA moniker on you or are just a progressive candidate or a moderate candidate, voters are looking for candidates they can trust and those candidates who have the experience to deliver whatever it is voters are looking for,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe candidates that won, I think, have clearly delivered that message to voters that \u2018I understand where your needs are and I can deliver,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fernando Guerra, founding director of Loyola Marymount University\u2019s Center for the Study of Los Angeles, said the success of DSA-backed candidates across Southern California points to a broader political shift and DSA\u2019s growing influence in California politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis solidifies the idea and the fact that the DSA is a factor, No. 1, and that DSA has the potential to become an even more powerful group in the foreseeable future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Guerra added, though, that the latest election results don\u2019t necessarily mean voters have embraced DSA\u2019s specific policy proposals. Rather, he said, the appeal of DSA-backed candidates lies partly in their ability to present themselves as alternatives to the political establishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like, \u2018we don\u2019t care, but they\u2019re not the establishment,\u2019\u201d Guerra said of voters\u2019 attitudes. \u201cBecause what the establishment has done in the last decade or so is not working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Progressives are indeed having a moment in politics, said Chris Zepeda-Mill\u00e1n, a public policy professor at UCLA with expertise in racial and ethnic politics, political activism and social movements. But today\u2019s progressive candidates are focused on issues different than those of the past, he said.<\/p>\n

Unlike the progressive movement of the 1990s, which was more about identity politics based on race or sexual orientation, for instance, today\u2019s progressive movement is focused on economic inequalities and everyday bread-and-butter issues, Zepeda-Mill\u00e1n said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like (CA-34 Rep.) Jimmy Gomez, Karen Bass,<\/a> who came out of the L.A. Democratic machine. \u2026 They were challenged within (their party) by people who put working-class issues front and center,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely a moment of progressivism, but it\u2019s a class-based progressivism,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

And in the cases of Bass and Gomez, other factors may have contributed to their losses. Bass took a major political hit due to fallout stemming from her handling of last year\u2019s deadly Palisades fire,<\/a> while Gomez is facing allegations of sexual misconduct<\/a>, a claim which he\u2019s denied.<\/p>\n

Whether these issues tipped the scale in their opponent\u2019s favor is anyone\u2019s guess, but experts note there were multiple factors at play.<\/p>\n

One of his biggest takeaways from Tuesday\u2019s election was the strong support younger voters showed for progressive candidates, said former L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is now executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs.<\/p>\n

Renters are also becoming a bigger force in Los Angeles politics, particularly as younger residents struggle with housing costs and the prospect of ever owning a home, Bonin said. Progressive candidates, he said, have been more focused on issues affecting those voters, including affordable housing<\/a>, wages and public transportation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve seen, particularly in Los Angeles, is since 2020 \u2013 not coincidentally, since the election of Nithya Raman (to the City Council)<\/a> \u2013 renters have really become more of a force in Los Angeles politics,\u201d Bonin said.<\/p>\n

But he cautioned against reading the results as simply a sign of DSA\u2019s growing influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people in the media tend to overemphasize the DSA thing, when DSA is only one part of what in Southern California has become a growing and more influential\u2026.progressive electoral infrastructure,\u201d he said, pointing to groups such as Working Families Party and LA Forward, which also works to advance progressive candidates.<\/p>\n

Grose, the USC professor, believes the successes progressive candidates have seen in this year\u2019s elections are partly attributable simply to voter dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and said if progressive Democrats fail to deliver results in this next term, the pendulum could swing back in future elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters are incredibly unhappy with the Republican Party<\/a> and are not that enthusiastic about Democrats<\/a> or progressives but are willing to give them a chance,\u201d Grose said about this year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a progressive shift in some election outcomes, but I don\u2019t know how voters will respond to progressives in the next four years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nithya Raman. Marissa Roy. Angela Gonzales-Torres. What do those three names have in common? They all won, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1400,7,400,1751,204,48,52,51,205,47,137,50,49,100,13,136],"class_list":["post-522020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-california-politics","tag-democrats","tag-election","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-local-politics","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522020","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=522020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}