Nithya Raman will be the next mayor of Los Angeles, making her the first challenger to defeat the incumbent Los Angeles mayor in more than two decades.
Mayor Karen Bass called Raman on Thursday to concede the race after the final tally from Tuesday’s election showed Raman with 52% of the vote to Bass’s 48%, with 76% of expected votes counted.
“Los Angeles, I am deeply honored to be your next mayor,” Raman, 45, said in a video statement. “I also wanted to pay tribute to Mayor Karen Bass, someone who dedicated decades of her life to making this city what it is today.”
Bass, 73, thanked her supporters and said she accepted the voters’ decision.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said in a statement. “I called Councilwoman Nithya Raman to congratulate her on her victory, and I am committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition. Moving this city forward is what Los Angeles needs from all of us.”
“Four years ago, you elected me as the first black woman mayor in the history of Los Angeles,” Bass said. “You honored me by serving the city that raised me, and every day since, I have carried that responsibility with me.”
Raman’s victory capped a historic sprint of a campaign. The city council member jumped into the mayoral race in the final hours before the nomination deadline after deciding to run the night before, taking on a former ally in a move that infuriated Los Angeles Democratic lawmakers who almost unanimously backed Bass in his re-election bid.
The initial vote count after polls closed Tuesday night had Raman slightly behind Bass, but analysts saw it as a sign that Raman would win. Polls have consistently shown Raman heavily favored by younger, more progressive voters, who tend to turn in their ballots later than older voters.
Late-arriving mail-in ballots pushed Raman into the lead, and as of Thursday morning, she was ahead of Bass by nearly 35,000 votes.
Olvera Street business owner Richard Hernandez, left, talks with Nithya Raman on May 19.
(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)
Raman and Bass were locked in a tight and controversial race until Election Day, with the latest poll showing the second-term council member and incumbent mayor each had the support of 40 percent of Angelenos, while 19 percent of the electorate remained undecided.
But a blue wave across the country that toppled Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House boosted Raman’s campaign against Bass on the left.
Raman ran with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing organization that has supported Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), among others.
Bass, meanwhile, delivered a public safety message intended to convince moderate and more conservative voters that she was a better alternative to Raman.
The election was primarily a generational shift, as Raman swept the youth vote citywide and Bass performed better among voters over 50.
“I look at this race almost entirely through a generational lens,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley.
Nithya Raman attends an election eve rally.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
“I think this is a new coalition built by Nithya Raman on the basis of age,” said Mike Trujillo, a Democratic consultant who supported Bass in the race. “It’s not a geographic or racial coalition, it’s a coalition of birth.”
The last challenger to defeat an incumbent mayor was then-City Council member Antonio Villaraigosa, who defeated James K. Hahn in 2005.
None of Raman’s colleagues on the city council supported his candidacy for mayor. Raman said she wasn’t bothered by the lack of support, instead presenting herself as a hopeful technocrat who wanted to introduce “A City That Works,” her campaign slogan, promising to make Los Angeles a city that fixes broken sidewalks and potholes and fixes darkened streetlights in a faster way.
“The government of this city has made solving problems seem impossible for so long that I’ve heard people all over the city starting to believe it’s impossible,” Raman said during an election night speech to hundreds of boisterous supporters on Griffith Park’s Greek Theater Square. “Despair can be fatal to a city, but this countryside refused to accept it. »
Although Raman did not declare victory Tuesday, his speech bore all the marks of someone who expected to win.
“In just a century, Los Angeles has become a global metropolis,” she said. “The gateway to the Pacific. A center of ingenuity and invention. The cultural capital of the entire planet. This aspirational Los Angeles, this joyful Los Angeles, this creative Los Angeles, this enterprising Los Angeles, this inclusive Los Angeles is the Los Angeles this campaign was born to fight for.”
Raman’s term as mayor will begin Dec. 8, and his job brings in $310,000 a year. The City Council is expected to schedule a special election to fill her vacancy on the council, where she represented a district centered in the Hollywood Hills.
Raman’s status as mayor-elect would have seemed almost unthinkable earlier this year, when Bass’s challengers included former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a former Los Angeles Unified superintendent. Austin Beutner, left-wing Rev. Rae Huang and entrepreneur Adam Miller — with Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and billionaire developer Rick Caruso also considering bids.
Brent Oakes and his son Lyle, 2, ride the slide at the Vineyard Recreation Center in Los Angeles during the “Families for Nithya” event on May 16.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Beutner suspended its offer after his daughter’s death, and it appeared that Bass, despite low approval ratings, might seek a second term without a serious challenger in the race.
But the night before the filing deadline, February 7, rumors began to circulate that Raman considered challenging Bass.
“She saw the path open before anyone else. Then she walked in. Once she explained to me what the path was, I said to myself that she could absolutely win,” said Adam Conover, an actor and writer who volunteered for Raman’s mayoral campaign.
Conover explained that there was a path for a progressive pragmatist who could capitalize on voters’ frustration with the status quo — the same way Raman won her council seat for the first time in 2020, when she unseated incumbent David Ryu.
The day after Raman announced his candidacy, Conover and others were in Raman’s backyard ADU to help set up the campaign.
“Who remembers the month of February, when it was the end of applications and no one was running for town hall? asked City Comptroller Kenneth Mejia at Raman’s election night. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be here again for another four years, stuck like this.’
“And then, out of nowhere – out of nowhere – Nithya Raman came out of nowhere with the three-pointer and she came out of nowhere and said, ‘I’m running for mayor!'” Mejia shouted during a rousing speech as he mimed shooting a basketball.
Nithya Raman dances with her supporters during her election night at the Greek Theater Square.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
After her speech, Raman asked her supporters to join her on the dance floor, where she sang Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time,” stopping at regular intervals to hug her supporters and pose for selfies with them.
“People want change. They’re not satisfied with what the last four years have brought,” Horvath said at Raman’s election night party. “They didn’t want to automatically approve a new term. Councilor Raman stood up with courage and grace to accept the status quo. It’s never easy.”
“It doesn’t always win you friends,” Horvath added, “but she did.”
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