Nithya Raman Projected to Win Los Angeles Mayor’s Race, Defeating Karen Bass

Nithya Raman is projected to be the 44th mayor of Los Angeles, unseating incumbent Karen Bass, a fellow Democrat who struggled with credibility as constituent anger surged over a variety of municipal ills, including housing and affordability, the entertainment production exodus and her response to the Palisades wildfire. The win for the leftist City Councilmember, running as an outsider against the local party machine, is a significant victory for the region’s progressive movement, which heavily skews toward younger voters who rent instead of owning their homes. Independent election polling site Decision Desk H.Q., which partners with Ballotpedia, announced Raman’s victory. She is currently up more than three percent, with nearly three-quarters of expected votes now tallied. Raman’s lead is expected to grow as mail-in ballots, which take longer to process and favor her base, are counted. During her election night party on Nov. 3 at the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park, Raman denounced the “cynicism” which “started to make us believe that L.A.’s problems weren’t just bad, but they were permanent.” She avowed that the city “is worth fighting for every single day of our lives.” Raman, 45, is a Harvard- and MIT-trained urban planner who founded a L.A. homelessness nonprofit and served as executive director of Time’s Up, the ill-fated advocacy organization focused on workplace sexual harassment, before winning her City Council seat in 2020. The industry-heavy district spans the southern swath of the San Fernando Valley, from Sherman Oaks to Studio City, across the Hollywood Hills to the Eastside enclaves of Los Feliz and Silver Lake. It includes the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Sign and NBCUniversal. Through each of her campaigns, Raman, who was born in India and will be the city’s first Asian American mayor, has generated Hollywood support — particularly from its TV comedy scene. Donors to her mayoral race have included Tina Fey, Mike Schur, Mindy Kaling and Cord Jefferson. She’s married to Vali Chandrasekaran, a writer-producer who has worked on 30 Rock, Modern Family, My Name is Earl and The Four Seasons. (They have twin 10-year-old children.) During their campaigns, both candidates said they’d back unlimited film and TV credits at the state level, and champion a federal tax incentive to make the U.S. more internationally competitive. Raman has attacked Bass’ handling of the issue, including her tardiness in appointing a film liaison to the industry. Still, despite her closeness to the industry, Raman’s record of advocating for Hollywood’s needs has been called into question, even as the city and state continued to experience its historic runaway production. (The effects of the entertainment free fall have been felt across the local economy.) In office, Raman’s key policy focus has been on housing, first championing Measure ULA, known as the “Mansion Tax,” then criticizing the unintended consequences of the legislation once its ruinous impact on apartment construction became clear. She’s since pushed for reform. (The issue has been a recurring subplot on Netflix’s real-life drama about L.A. real estate, Selling Sunset.) Bass, 73, was Los Angeles’ first female mayor and second Black mayor. A former community organizer turned veteran elected official, she spent years ascending to the top of California’s state assembly before spending more than a decade in Congress, representing a largely African American and Hispanic section of South L.A., which has been her political base. Joe Biden reportedly took her under serious consideration to be his running mate while he was the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in 2020. Bass has long maintained Hollywood ties. Her most prominent supporters in her mayoral reelection campaign included Jane Fonda, J.J. Abrams, Samuel L. Jackson and Anthony Anderson. Raman ran to the left of Bass. Her campaign included a sit-down interview with the controversial leftist streamer Hasan Piker, as well as a fraught relationship with the Democratic Socialists of America. Once a dues-paying member of the organization’s local chapter, citing its commitment to housing affordability, she was censured by DSA L.A. in 2024 for not fully adopting its policy positions against Israel. In the mayoral race, the local chapter ultimately backed her, while the DSA’s national leadership challenged that endorsement. Raman’s last-minute insurgent run against the local Democratic Party machine put her at odds with a bloc of her fellow progressives on the City Council, who had already endorsed Bass. The top sitting L.A. politicians to endorse her were County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who considered her own run against Bass and represents a swath of the Westside affected by the Palisades wildfire, along with the City Controller Kenneth Mejia. Now Raman, Mejia and newly elected L.A. City Attorney Marissa Roy, who’s a member of the DSA, constitute a triumvirate of progressivism at the highest reaches of City Hall. The general election followed a heated primary race defined by the reactionary-populist run of the former reality TV star Spencer Pratt. He drew national attention for his high-energy campaign of grievance politics after he lost his house during the Palisades wildfire due to what he argued was government negligence. Another key figure through the cycle has been the local billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, a center-right Democrat who lost to Bass in 2022. He declined to run again but has remained a prominent and influential presence in the city’s political conversation. Despite having fiercely criticized Bass during her term, including over her handling of the Palisades disaster (his own Palisades Village luxury shopping center was damaged), he announced in October that he would be voting for her. Raman’s term will overlap with L.A.’s hosting of the 2028 Summer Olympics, a global spectacle offering the city an opportunity to reboot its tarnished image. The former Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy recently took the baton to oversee the ceremonies after Peter Rice, who had been running the effort, became Netflix’s chief content officer.