Nithya Raman ran for mayor of Los Angeles as an outsider. The democratic socialist won no endorsements from her 14 city council colleagues, the police union opposed her, she had friction with the Jewish community and the Democratic establishment lined up behind the incumbent, Karen Bass. After a stunning upset, she now has to show she can lead.
When she takes office in mid-December, Raman must navigate political rifts in a fractured City Hall while confronting problems that defied her predecessors, including a persistent homeless crisis, an exodus of Hollywood jobs and miles of crumbling streets and sidewalks, all with a strained budget. Speaking to reporters Thursday for the first time as mayor-elect, she was succinct. "Homelessness, housing costs and public safety," she said. "These will have to be the priorities that I take on in the city."
The millennial, India-born Raman remains a new face to many Angelenos, but how she governs the nation's second most populous city will be watched nationally, especially as LA prepares to host the 2028 Olympics. She joins democratic socialists leading major cities, including Zohran Mamdani in New York and Katie Wilson in Seattle; Janeese Lewis George was elected Tuesday as mayor of Washington, D.C.
Raman is expected to steer the city leftward, though she has been outspoken about breaking with the Democratic Socialists of America when she believes its agenda conflicts with the city's interests. "My independence will always be paramount," she said at a candidate forum in September.
She has faced questions about an interview last spring with progressive commentator Hasan Piker, in which she responded "I do, yes" when asked if she believed Israel had committed genocide. At a forum co-hosted by the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, she called genocide "a deeply painful word" but said she was compelled to speak out after seeing images of "the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children." Some in the DSA thought her Israel stances too soft, and after her win the federation urged her to "rebuild trust with Jewish Angelenos that was strained during the campaign."
Occidental College political scientist Caroline Heldman said Raman must propose concrete solutions to the day-to-day headaches of LA life, from potholes and broken streetlights to homeless encampments. "She positioned herself as the pothole politician, very similar to Zohran Mamdani. I see her taking a page out of his playbook," Heldman said.
Mike Bonin, a former council member who served with Raman from 2020 to 2022 and now directs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, described her as progressive in philosophy but moderate in temperament. "She got painted in this campaign as a crazy socialist idealogue or a flip-flopper with no core values," he said, but "she wanted to work with people. She is very focused on results."
Raman has not delivered a financially detailed plan for the city's stubborn maladies. Few issues in LA, birthplace of car culture, prompt more grumbling than traffic and potholes. A "back to basics" paving push by former Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2013 yielded little, and under Bass the city focused on filling potholes rather than resurfacing streets. Raman says she will recast that policy, but funding and pace remain unknown.
An urban planner educated at Harvard and MIT, Raman founded a homelessness outreach nonprofit in LA and is raising 10-year-old twins with her TV writer and producer husband in Silver Lake. She won partly by challenging a wounded incumbent as voters nationwide wanted change; Bass was undone by the deadly Palisades Fire, which ignited while she was out of the country and caught the fire department unprepared.
Mayors in LA share power with the city council, an arrangement Bonin compared to an accordion. "I can't think of a mayor who had to take office with so many problems," he said. "Everybody leaves unpopular.. It's not a job that makes you well loved."
