Nithya Raman Is Not L.A.'s Mamdani. But She Might Become Mayor, Too.

Little known a year ago, Nithya Raman is a Democratic Socialist drawing comparisons with New York's Zohran Mamdani. She has mounted a strong challenge to the incumbent, Karen Bass.

The crowd of supporters was almost artfully diverse: union members in neon orange construction vests, democratic socialists in Dodger blue "DSA LA" ball caps, a group of banner-toting South Asian American workers.

"Look around," said Nithya Raman, the front-runner to become Los Angeles's next leader in the Nov. 3 election. "This is the coalition that is going to take us to the mayor's seat." The crowd cheered and waved yellow and blue campaign signs.

It was a scene few would have predicted at the beginning of the year, when Ms. Raman, 45, was a little known member of the Los Angeles City Council. But at every step of her rise, Ms. Raman has vaulted past expectations.

In 2020, as a political newcomer, she unseated an incumbent council member -- the first time that had happened in more than a decade. In 2024, she fended off a well-funded challenge from a former prosecutor. Her council seat, in one of the city's most liberal and highly educated districts, was where she expected to stay for the next four years.

Then came a chain of unlikely events: The most viable challenger to Mayor Karen Bass dropped out because of a family tragedy, leaving her virtually unopposed. Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality TV star, joined the race, attracting disaffected Angelenos and scrambling the deeply blue city's electoral math. And a wave of other democratic socialists ascended in cities across the country.

Now, buoyed by the same forces that catapulted Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City to national prominence -- seething frustration with the Democratic establishment chief among them -- Ms. Raman is leading in polls to oust Ms. Bass.

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