Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, advanced Monday evening to a runoff election against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, setting up a November contest that will force voters to choose between two brands of progressive governance in a city battered by wildfire fallout, visible homelessness, and budget strain.
The Associated Press projected that Raman secured her place in the general election after former reality TV figure Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the race. Voters will decide the overall winner on Nov. 3, Fox News reported.
The result means Los Angeles will not have a right-of-center option on the ballot this fall. Pratt, described alternately as a Republican and a rightward-leaning independent, gained traction in the closing weeks of the campaign but fell short. What remains is a matchup between an incumbent who claims progress and a self-described socialist who wants to go further left, a dynamic that mirrors what happened earlier in New York City, where far-left candidate Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty. Raman has been compared to Mamdani for her ideological profile.
Raman has chaired the Los Angeles City Council's Housing and Homelessness Committee since 2023. She pitched herself during the primary as a hopeful alternative to Bass's leadership and what she called a fear-driven campaign from Pratt.
In a campaign video, Raman laid out her vision:
"We can bring LA back to what it really is: one of the most creative, beautiful and most hopeful places in the world. But only if we come together to fight for it."
She also took aim at both of her opponents. Raman described the race this way:
"We have a mayor who has failed to lead this city and, on the other hand, a right-wing extremist, powered by MAGA, who's channeling people's frustrations about this city into fear and anger and hatred."
That framing tells you something about the November contest ahead. The woman who chairs the committee responsible for LA's homelessness crisis is calling the incumbent a failure, while simultaneously dismissing the one candidate who offered a different governing philosophy as an extremist. Convenient.
After advancing, Raman said she was "incredibly honored that voters have given us the opportunity to advance to the general election for Mayor of Los Angeles." She added: "If you're as frustrated by the broken status quo as I am, I hope you'll join our movement to build a city that works for everyone."
Mayor Bass wasted no time drawing contrasts. In a post on X following the primary results, Bass declared victory over Pratt and framed the runoff in stark terms.
"We won on Tuesday, and LA rejected Spencer Pratt and the MAGA agenda. Next, we'll win in November!"
Bass followed that with a pointed attack on Raman's council record:
"Because this is an election with a choice between whether we keep making change together or Nithya Raman, who allows encampments near schools and fights against hiring more cops, yet is MIA on saving Hollywood jobs and fighting back when ICE invades LA."
That line about ICE is worth pausing on. Bass framed federal immigration enforcement as an invasion, language that positions her well to the left of most American voters on border security. Yet she still felt the need to outflank Raman from the right on policing and public safety. That tells you how far left Raman sits on the spectrum, even by Los Angeles standards.
Conservative voters watching surprising political developments around the country will recognize the pattern: when the center-left candidate in a deep-blue city has to attack her opponent for being soft on encampments near schools and hostile to police hiring, the Overton window has moved considerably.
Bass first won office in 2022, defeating independent challenger Rick J. Caruso by a margin of 54.8% to 45.2%. She has since faced sharp criticism over the Palisades fires and her handling of visible homelessness and budget deficits during her three years in the role.
Her campaign website frames the race as a turning point, claiming Bass has delivered results after decades of drift.
"Los Angeles is at a turning point. After decades of rising homelessness, under-built housing and a shrinking police force, it's Mayor Karen Bass who finally stepped up to change how City Hall works."
The site also claims that "homelessness is down, more housing is being built and LAPD is hiring new officers." Whether those claims hold up to scrutiny will be a central question of the fall campaign.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed Bass on May 28, giving the incumbent the state party establishment's backing heading into the runoff. But establishment support did not save Bass from drawing a challenger who wants to pull the city even further left.
For conservatives, this race offers no good options, only a revealing case study. Los Angeles residents who have endured rising homelessness, inadequate policing, and wildfire devastation will now choose between an incumbent who acknowledges "decades" of failure while claiming credit for modest gains, and a Democratic Socialist who chaired the very committee overseeing the homelessness crisis and wants to double down on the same progressive framework that produced it.
Raman's membership in the Democratic Socialists of America puts her in the same ideological lane as New York's Mamdani. The comparison matters. Cities that hand the keys to candidates from that wing of the left tend to see the same results: more spending, less enforcement, and worsening quality of life for ordinary residents who just want safe streets and functioning services.
Bass, for her part, entered office in 2022 promising change and now finds herself defending a record that even she describes against a backdrop of "decades of rising homelessness, under-built housing and a shrinking police force." Three years in, the best her own website can offer is that things are moving in the right direction. Residents dealing with encampments near their children's schools may not share that optimism.
The elimination of Spencer Pratt, whatever one thinks of his candidacy, means the November ballot will feature no candidate willing to challenge the progressive consensus that has governed Los Angeles for years. Pratt gained traction late, suggesting real appetite among voters for something different. That appetite now has nowhere to go.
Republicans and independents following legal and political battles reshaping governance across the country should take note of what happens when one-party rule faces no external accountability. The debate in Los Angeles is not whether progressive governance has failed, both candidates essentially concede that point. The debate is whether the answer is more of the same or even more of the same, but harder.
Bass's attack on Raman over police hiring and encampments near schools is the most telling detail in this race. When the incumbent mayor of America's second-largest city has to warn voters that her opponent "fights against hiring more cops," you understand the stakes. This is not a contest between left and center. It is a contest between left and further left, with the people of Los Angeles stuck paying the tab.
The broader trend should concern anyone watching instability ripple through both parties nationwide. Deep-blue cities keep producing races where the only question is how far left the next leader will go. Accountability never arrives because the opposition never makes it to the ballot.
Meanwhile, the real losers in this equation remain the same as always: the families living near encampments, the small business owners watching their neighborhoods decline, the taxpayers funding programs that produce press releases instead of results, and the ordinary Americans navigating difficult circumstances while their leaders argue about whether to hire more police officers or fewer.
Nov. 3 will arrive soon enough. Los Angeles voters will make their choice. But no matter who wins, the city's problems were built by the same progressive consensus both candidates represent, and neither has offered a reason to believe more of it will produce a different result.
When both sides of an election agree the system is broken and neither is willing to question the ideology that broke it, the election isn't really a choice. It's a formality.
