Nithya Raman is the comeback kid of L.A. politics
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On the night of the June primary, standing before cheering supporters at a downtown brewery, Nithya Raman was in a familiar position:
Outspent by rivals. Mocked by online haters. Her political career left for dead.
In early returns for Los Angeles mayor, Raman was in third place behind incumbent Karen Bass and reality TV villain Spencer Pratt. The City Council member thanked everyone for helping her “little campaign” but seemed resigned to defeat.
“We may not get an answer we like,” Raman said. “But regardless of what happens next, nobody — nobody — can take away what all of us have built together.”
The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman for mayor Wednesday, giving the challenger a boost of left-wing, door-knocking energy as she challenges incumbent Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 election.
She ended her short speech by going on the dance floor to greet well-wishers and boogie for a bit. The move came off to me as someone losing herself in happiness so she didn’t have to think about the sad reality.
But when I think about that moment now, it seems clear that she was embracing another familiar position:
Confident in what was ahead. Content with being underestimated. Ready to upend City Hall yet again.
As more votes were counted, Raman overtook Pratt to face Bass in the November runoff. Raman’s last-minute decision to enter the race had shocked L.A.’s political class and drawn accusations of betrayal for challenging Bass, a longtime ally whom she had endorsed. Yet Raman managed to pull off a hard-fought campaign, with Pratt as an unexpectedly strong insurgent from the right — a winning streak that continued this week when she scored two key endorsements.
The L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and Unite Here Local 11, the powerful hospitality workers union, will now bring their renowned get-out-the-vote operations to L.A. doorsteps, street corners and smartphone screens on Raman’s behalf. Unite Here gives Raman’s campaign a working class cred it has sorely lacked. The DSA will unleash the democratic socialist trade winds that have swept across elections nationwide and helped five of its six endorsed candidates in L.A. County either win outright in the June primary or move on to the general election.
Neither endorsement was guaranteed. Even though Raman is a member and the L.A. chapter had endorsed her two City Council campaigns, the group didn’t officially support her in the mayoral primary. Some members openly questioned whether having a democratic socialist run a city seemingly destined for the dumpster was the best look for their movement. Raman’s positions on police funding, the mansion tax and the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks also ran counter to the party orthodoxy.
Unite Here had regularly endorsed Bass throughout her 22-year political career and seemed likely to join the dozens of other unions backing the mayor.
But with the one-two punch, Raman has shown yet again that she’s the comeback kid of L.A. politics. Every time critics throw her a curveball, she smacks it to the opposite field and gets on base, ready to grind her way to a win.
In 2020, the city’s establishment initially dismissed Raman, then a political novice, as a wokosa fluke, until she beat David Ryu, who became the first L.A. council incumbent to lose in 17 years.
A year later, Raman was seen as such a threat that the powers that be sought to torpedo her for good. In the infamous City Hall leaked audio, then-Councilmember Kevin de León suggested to then-Councilmember Gil Cedillo, then-council President Nury Martinez and labor leader Ron Herrera that Raman’s district could be “put in the blender and [chopped] up, left and right” during redistricting to dampen her reelection chances.
On the recording, Martinez enthusiastically endorsed the plan, telling the other three that Raman had complained about the possibility of a redrawn district.
“Go f— do the work,” Martinez said she told Raman, “and see if you can” win again.
Raman did win, scoring an outright victory in the 2024 primary (Martinez, of course, resigned in disgrace). A censure from DSA-LA because Raman accepted the endorsement of a pro-Israel group proved no more debilitating than a stray eyelash.
In this year’s mayoral primary, Raman raised less money than Bass and Pratt and flopped during their one debate against each other. Her fellow democratic socialist council members — Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martínez — all endorsed the mayor.
None of it mattered. Raman is now easily scoring off of Bass mishaps, like the mayor’s response to the Lineage warehouse fire and her random broadside against street vendors during a debate in Sherman Oaks last month. The Dodgers should sit Raman in their dugout come playoff time, because her knack for rallying from behind is almost preternatural.
The road to victory remains daunting, of course. Bass has never lost an election and won’t easily fold, even as her first term has careened from one crisis to another. Raman’s fiercest critics on the council — Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez — lord over South L.A., the Westside and the eastern San Fernando Valley, respectively, regions where Raman needs strong showings. The DSA endorsement will make it easier for critics to paint Raman as left of Lenin, even though her record is more pragmatist than pinko puppet.
She’s even drawing the ire of Pratt, who spent most of his campaign deriding the mayor as “basura” — trash — but is now blasting Raman, while the 26% of Angelenos who voted for him and are a key swing constituency are waiting to see who, if anyone, he’ll favor.
Raman anticipated all of this when she jumped into the race, she told supporters on primary night.
“These powerful interests spent millions of dollars against this little campaign, spent millions trying to preserve this city’s broken and unjust status quo,” she said. “And we said no.”
But the words I recall the most from that party at Boomtown Brewery came from Raman’s father, Venkit. After joking that his daughter didn’t go into a profession that most Indian immigrant parents wish for their children, he explained that her full name — Nithya Varsha — means “forever monsoon” in Sanskrit.
“If you think about it more, that’s exactly what she is,” Venkit said to cheers. “A constant, unstoppable force that brings life to the land.”
Let’s see how far the Raman storm goes.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The column portrays Raman as a resilient “comeback kid” whose political career has repeatedly been underestimated, from her 2020 City Council upset through her advance to the mayoral runoff despite being outspent and mocked.
It argues that her late entry into the mayor’s race, even after endorsing Bass, reflects a willingness to challenge entrenched power and a belief that grassroots organizing can overcome big-money interests.
The piece highlights new endorsements from DSA-LA and Unite Here Local 11 as evidence that left-wing activists and hospitality workers see Raman as a vehicle for systemic change on housing, wages and the city’s “broken and unjust status quo,” and as validation of her campaign’s momentum[1][4][9].
The column emphasizes Raman’s history of surviving establishment attempts to sideline her, from proposed redistricting to party censure, to argue that she thrives in adversity and has a knack for turning political setbacks into victories.
It contends that Bass’s perceived missteps on crises such as the Lineage warehouse fire and street vending enforcement have opened space for Raman to present a more accountable, people-centered alternative at City Hall.
While acknowledging that critics will use the DSA label to paint Raman as “left of Lenin,” the column suggests her actual record in office is more pragmatic than ideological and frames her coalition of socialists and labor as broad-based rather than fringe, pointing to growing left-wing organizing and key union support[1][4][9].
The piece ultimately casts Raman as an almost “preternatural” underdog, likening her to an unstoppable “forever monsoon” whose persistence and organizing prowess could upend Los Angeles politics yet again.
Different views on the topic
Some DSA-LA members and socialist commentators have argued that endorsing Raman compromises the organization’s principles, pointing to her pursuit of a pro-Israel endorsement and positions they see as insufficiently aligned with democratic socialist priorities[5][8][9].
Internal critiques published ahead of the endorsement vote urged DSA-LA members to reject backing Raman, contending that socialists should build “lasting power” by running candidates who more fully embody the group’s program rather than supporting a sitting council member perceived as too moderate or inconsistent on key issues[8].
Even within DSA-LA’s endorsement process, a substantial minority opposed supporting Raman, with vote tallies showing hundreds of members voting against or abstaining, reflecting ongoing unease about her fit with the chapter’s vision for the mayor’s office[1][3][9].
Commentary in conservative outlets has framed Raman’s embrace of DSA-LA as aligning with a faction that seeks to defund the police and abolish ICE, warning that such associations confirm critics’ fears that her mayoral bid represents an advance of far-left policies in Los Angeles governance[2].
Labor reporting has noted that, despite Raman’s high-profile backing from Unite Here Local 11 and a carpenters’ council, organized labor overall remains heavily tilted toward Bass, with dozens of unions endorsing the incumbent and only a handful publicly supporting the challenger, underscoring doubts within the labor movement about Raman’s readiness to lead the city[4][6].
Coverage of the mayoral race has emphasized Bass’s long record of electoral success and broad coalition of supporters, presenting the incumbent as a stabilizing figure amid overlapping crises and suggesting that many Angelenos may prefer continuity and experienced leadership over the more disruptive change Raman promises[4][6][7].
Election analyses have highlighted the competitiveness of the primary and the strong showing by Spencer Pratt, noting that Raman’s advance to the runoff came by a relatively narrow margin and that Pratt’s voters remain a key swing bloc whose skepticism toward Bass may not automatically translate into support for a candidate identified with DSA and progressive politics[2][7][9].
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