Los Angeles has elected a democratic socialist as mayor for the first time, as City Councilmember Nithya Raman defeated incumbent Karen Bass in a result that stunned political watchers who had treated Raman as a long-shot candidate when she entered the race.
Bass, a former member of Congress who became the city's first Black female mayor and had never previously lost an election, called Raman on Thursday to concede. "While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken," Bass wrote in a social media post. "Moving this city forward is what Los Angeles needs from all of us. I love Los Angeles. I believe in Los Angeles."
Raman, an Indian immigrant and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, ran on a platform aimed at what she called the city's "broken status quo," promising to cut homelessness, add housing, protect Hollywood production jobs and shield residents from federal immigration enforcement. The win means America's two largest cities will both be led by democratic socialists, following New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's victory there, and comes the same week Washington, D.C. elected Janeese Lewis George, another democratic socialist, as its mayor.
The fires were the fault line
The dominant issue in the race was the devastating Pacific Palisades-area wildfires of January 2025, which killed dozens of people and razed entire neighborhoods. Bass faced sustained criticism over her absence from the city during the early hours of the emergency and over the pace of the recovery effort since, a political wound from the disaster itself that dogged her re-election bid for nearly two years.
Raman built her coalition slowly, drawing heavy support from younger voters after entering the race as an underdog, and first had to get past reality-television figure Spencer Pratt in the primary before facing Bass directly. Asked about the wave of democratic-socialist wins on the left flank of his own party, President Trump told reporters at the White House, "If you go by history, it's going to be a disaster."
A big job waiting
Whoever holds the office will now oversee a city due to host the Super Bowl in 2027 and the Summer Olympics in 2028, giving Raman's administration an unusually compressed runway to show it can deliver on basic city services before the world's attention turns to Los Angeles. Bass, who got her start as a community organizer during the 1992 riots that followed the police beating of Rodney King, leaves office having spent her final months contending with both the fire recovery and a federal immigration crackdown that put her repeatedly at odds with the Trump administration.
Raman is expected to be sworn in before the end of the year. Her transition team has not yet detailed a timeline for her promised housing and homelessness initiatives, though she has said fixing basic infrastructure — roads, sanitation and the city's long-stalled beautification efforts — will be an early priority.
