Nithya Raman Takes Charge in Los Angeles Amid Homelessness Crisis and Political Divide

LOS ANGELES – Nithya Raman entered the Los Angeles mayoral race as an outsider. The democratic socialist failed to secure an endorsement from any of her 14 fellow City Council members. She faced opposition from the police union, strained relations with some Jewish community leaders and a Democratic establishment firmly aligned with incumbent Karen Bass.

Now, as mayor-elect, Raman must prove she can govern.

Her upset victory places her at the center of a deeply divided City Hall, where she will confront challenges that have frustrated previous administrations. Those include Los Angeles’ persistent homelessness crisis, the loss of Hollywood jobs and miles of deteriorating roads and sidewalks — all while working with a budget under pressure.

Speaking to reporters Thursday for the first time since the election, Raman offered a brief outline of her priorities.

“Homelessness, housing costs and public safety,” she said. “These will have to be the priorities that I take on in the city.”

Even after a high-profile campaign, the India-born millennial remains unfamiliar to many Angelenos in a city where local politics often draw limited attention. Her leadership of the nation’s second-largest city will nevertheless be watched closely across the country, particularly as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Olympics.

Raman joins a growing group of democratic socialist mayors

When she takes office in mid-December, Raman will become part of a rising group of democratic socialists leading major U.S. cities, including Zohran Mamdani in New York and Katie Wilson in Seattle. Janeese Lewis George was also elected mayor of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Raman is expected to move Los Angeles to the left, but she has also emphasized that she is prepared to distance herself from the Democratic Socialists of America when she believes its positions conflict with the city’s needs. “My independence will always be paramount,” she said during a September candidate forum.

The Democratic Party’s divisions over the war in Gaza and U.S. aid to Israel also became part of the campaign. Raman drew scrutiny for an interview last spring with progressive commentator Hasan Piker, during which she answered “I do, yes” when asked whether she believed Israel had committed genocide. At a forum organized in part by the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, she acknowledged that genocide is “a deeply painful word,” but said images of “the targeting of hospitals, the deaths of children” compelled her to speak out. Her comments prompted murmurs from the audience.

Raman also encountered criticism from some DSA members who felt her position on Israel was not forceful enough.

Following her unexpected victory, the federation urged Raman to “rebuild trust with Jewish Angelenos that was strained during the campaign.”

A democratic socialist victory without Mamdani’s celebrity profile

Caroline Heldman, a political scientist at Occidental College, said Raman will need to deliver practical answers to the everyday frustrations of life in Los Angeles — from potholes and thousands of broken streetlights to the city’s efforts to clear homeless encampments.

“She didn’t win the election by positioning herself as being really ideologically distinct from Karen Bass,” Heldman said. “She positioned herself as the pothole politician, very similar to Zohran Mamdani. I see her taking a page out of his playbook.”

Raman, however, lacked the national profile that has become a defining feature of Mamdani’s political brand. The Los Angeles contest unfolded with relatively little fanfare, overshadowed by upheaval in Washington and the battle for control of Congress.

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Mike Bonin, a former Los Angeles council member and executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, described Raman as progressive in her beliefs but moderate in her approach.

“She got painted in this campaign as a crazy socialist ideologue or a flip-flopper with no core values,” said Bonin, who served alongside Raman from December 2020 through 2022. But, he added, “she wanted to work with people. She is very focused on results.”

Raman is beginning to build her City Hall administration

So far, Raman has not presented a detailed financial blueprint for addressing the city’s long-standing problems.

Few issues generate more frustration in Los Angeles — a city shaped by car culture, where driving is a daily necessity for many residents — than traffic and potholes. Former Mayor Eric Garcetti campaigned in 2013 on a “back to basics” promise that included repairing streets, but limited progress followed.

During Bass’ tenure, the city emphasized patching potholes instead of fully resurfacing roads. Raman has said she would change that approach, but the amount of money she plans to commit to street repairs, and the pace of the work, remain unclear.

On election night, before the results were officially called, Raman portrayed Los Angeles as a city that had lost its momentum and offered a broad vision for its future.

“LA stopped being a place where we could build things, where we could open things, where we could film things, where we could create things,” she said. Raman called for the return of “that ambitious Los Angeles, that joyful Los Angeles, that creative Los Angeles, that entrepreneurial Los Angeles.”

The response from the City Council was measured. Council member Traci Park, who supported Bass and said she had “concerns about the leadership and effectiveness” of both candidates, said she was ready to work with Raman as the city confronts its “great challenges.”

Raman defeated an incumbent weakened by crisis

Raman, who is raising 10-year-old twins with her television writer and producer husband in Silver Lake, benefited in part from running against an incumbent who was vulnerable as voters nationwide showed an appetite for change. Bass’ campaign was damaged by the deadly Palisades Fire, which began while she was overseas and exposed shortcomings in the city’s emergency response.

An urban planner educated at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Raman also founded a Los Angeles nonprofit focused on homelessness outreach.

Los Angeles mayors do not wield the same authority as their counterparts in New York or Chicago, because power is shared with the City Council. Bonin compared the office to an accordion that can expand or contract depending on the mayor.

He said former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose outgoing personality and charm were well known, “swung for the fences.” Bass, by contrast, was naturally inclined toward compromise. Raman will have to define her own approach.

“I can’t think of a mayor who had to take office with so many problems,” Bonin said. “Everybody leaves unpopular. … It’s not a job that makes you well loved.”