Democratic socialist Nithya Raman will defeat Karen Bass in LA mayor’s race, CNN projects
By Logan Schiciano, Eric Bradner ·
Democratic socialist Nithya Raman will defeat incumbent Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, CNN’s Decision Desk projects.
Raman, a city councilmember, overtook Republican Spencer Pratt in June’s nonpartisan primary to set up what was arguably a tougher race for Bass, a Democratic former congresswoman. With Raman’s victory, the nation’s two largest cities — New York and Los Angeles — will be led by democratic socialists next year.
Raman has vowed to cut street homelessness in half before Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympics.
Her victory highlights the continued ascendance of the Democratic Party’s progressive insurgency. Since last year, democratic socialists have won the mayor’s offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Seattle.
In Los Angeles, Raman’s win ends the tenure of a 73-year-old fixture of the party’s establishment who made history in the State Assembly in 2008 when she became the first Black woman to become speaker of any state legislative body in US history.
The ideological and factional battles that played out in the Los Angeles race will soon expand nationwide, as the 2028 Democratic presidential primary gets underway in the coming months and the party’s leaders and voters debate whether what worked in mayoral races in deep-blue cities can succeed nationally.
The victory by Raman, 45, is a harsh blow to the Los Angeles political establishment, including most major unions, which had rallied behind Bass.
The outcome reflects the lingering anger at how Bass managed the fallout from the 2025 wildfires, as well as voters seeking new approaches to entrenched issues like housing costs and homelessness.
Those were the same issues that animated Pratt’s campaign during the primary, when he earned 25.5% of the vote — about 3.5 percentage points behind Raman for second place. The two outsiders combining for more than 54% of the vote, though, underscored the difficulty Bass would face in winning a second term.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Originally published by CNN