Nithya Raman, who sparred with DSA on Israel, leads in LA mayor’s race
NITHYA Raman took the lead in the Los Angeles mayoral election early Wednesday morning, signaling likely victory for the democratic socialist councilmember in the city with the second-largest Jewish population in the country.
After trailing incumbent Mayor Karen Bass for most of Tuesday night, Raman surged into a lead of 2,100 votes, or just under o.5%, as of 1 a.m. local time, with about 650,000 votes counted.
Raman tried to contain her optimism in an all-but-declaring-victory speech late Tuesday night, when tallies showed her trailing by less than 2%.
“I’m hopeful — I’m very hopeful,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m also really superstitious, so we’re all just going to be cool, OK?”
Raman’s apparent upset — she would be the first candidate to defeat an incumbent LA mayor in 21 years — comes amid a tidal wave of victories for Democrats across the country, and progressives in particular. It also raises questions of how mainstream Jewish institutions will engage with a mayor who has called the war in Israel a genocide, but who also never made Israel a focal point of her campaign.
After an ugly race between former allies in LA city government, few anticipated the outcome seeming this clear, this early. A poll from the Los Angeles Times last week showed Raman and Bass in a dead heat. Raman was expected to win mail-in ballots, which skew toward younger and more progressive voters, and Tuesday’s results bore that out. What was not expected was the first wave of ballots showing Bass — an establishment Democrat with the backing of most labor unions, city councilmembers and corporate stakeholders like Airbnb — barely hanging on.
Though Raman, as a fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America, inspired comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as soon as she entered the race, she has taken a more nuanced approach on Israel. Despite her condemnation of the war in Gaza, Raman has clashed with the DSA by declining to adopt the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions platform. Though the local DSA chapter voted to endorse Raman, the national organization contemplated expelling her for not being pro-Palestinian enough. (It ultimately backed down.)
Meanwhile, Raman, whose council district encompasses several Jewish neighborhoods like Hancock Park and Sherman Oaks, has also frustrated some Jewish constituents by calling BDS a “legitimate form of peaceful protest.” The head of Jewish Federation Los Angeles said in September that her calling the war in Gaza a genocide crossed a “red line” for political candidates.
Bass, a mainstream Democrat who served six terms in Congress before running for mayor in 2022, entered the race as a historically unpopular incumbent, largely thanks to her response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Raman endorsed Bass prior to declaring her own candidacy on the last day to enter the race, a move Bass has characterised as a personal betrayal.
The polls swung back and forth in the weeks leading up to the election. Bass was leading until September, when one poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Times showed Raman ahead by 11 points with a third of voters still undecided.
An urban policy wonk who immigrated to the U.S. from India when she was 6, Raman ran a campaign focused on housing, homelessness and budget policy. But her membership in the DSA, an interview she granted Hasan Piker during the primary and the genocide comments dogged her anyway, especially among Jewish Angelenos.
Raman, after publicly condemning the DSA’s anti-Israel statements after Oct. 7, sponsored a resolution for a ceasefire and return of hostages in March 2024, disappointing mainstream Jewish groups who called the motion one-sided. Then, during the primary, Raman told Piker she believed the Gaza war was a genocide and that Israel was an apartheid state. She also said she would not seek the endorsement of pro-Israel Democratic Party groups as she had in 2024.
Her record on Israel seemed likely to come up when Raman participated in the candidate forum for Jewish voters Sept. 29. But Raman struggled to get through answers about the DSA, Piker and especially genocide and BDS — which she called a “legitimate form of peaceful protest” — leading to loud audience groans.
During Bass’ turn on stage, the mayor said she did not support BDS and did not believe the war in Gaza was a genocide.
Mail-in voters historically skew to the left, and the primary vote may offer a preview of the margin Raman might need.
In that election, about 58% of the total votes were tallied election night, when Bass led Raman 36.5% to 21%. Raman got the biggest share of the ensuing ballot batches, beating Bass by about five percentage points.
