Los Angeles has voted out its mayor. Nithya Raman, a city council member backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Mayor Karen Bass in the race for City Hall, an upset the Associated Press projected shortly before noon on Thursday, November 5, that will alter the trajectory of the nation's second-largest city. Bass conceded on Thursday morning and said she had called Raman to congratulate her.
Source: Associated Press via TMJ4 / Scripps News
"While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken," Bass said in a statement. "I have committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition. Moving this city forward is what Los Angeles needs from all of us." The Daily Bruin reported the same concession statement, issued as a Thursday morning press release.
Source: Daily Bruin
An upset two decades in the making
Bass becomes the first Los Angeles mayor in two decades to lose a bid for re-election. The run-off was the first to feature an incumbent mayor since 2005, when Antonio Villaraigosa defeated James Hahn. Raman and Bass advanced from the June 2 nonpartisan primary, which also eliminated former reality television personality Spencer Pratt, and faced each other again in Tuesday's general election.
Raman, 45, is an India-born urban planner who represents parts of Central Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley on the City Council. Indian media described her as Kerala-born and a Harvard graduate, and her victory makes her the city's first Asian-American mayor and only its second woman mayor, according to those reports. Her entry into the race marked a stunning change of heart: she had initially endorsed Bass, once her ally, then said the city had reached a "breaking point" and announced her own candidacy just before the filing deadline in February.
The fire that undid a mayor
Bass's first term was undone by the deadly Palisades Fire of January 2025, which ignited while she was out of the country and caught the fire department unprepared. The devastation left many voters with the feeling that Bass should be held to account, and she never recovered politically. Her homelessness programme, Inside Safe, was also scrutinised: it had spent more than $390 million as of April, with 40 percent of the people helped ending up back on the street, according to a Los Angeles city controller report cited by the Daily Bruin.
The polling told the same story of a restless city. A Berkeley IGS / Los Angeles Times poll conducted from October 19 to 25 found about 4 in 10 likely voters said reducing the number of homeless encampments should be a top priority for the next mayor, while about 3 in 10 named public safety or building more affordable housing. Raman held an 11-point lead in a September Berkeley IGS poll, but Bass erased it by late October, when both candidates stood at 40 percent. Roughly two-thirds of voters disapproved of Bass's job performance.
Change against the whole establishment
Raman's victory came despite limited backing from the Democratic establishment. Bass had the support of Governor Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with nearly every member of the City Council — 13 of the 15 councillors endorsed Bass, and none endorsed Raman. Billionaire developer Rick Caruso said he was voting for Bass, though he stopped short of a formal endorsement. Raman, by contrast, was backed by advocacy and political groups including Our Revolution, founded by Senator Bernie Sanders, and the Sierra Club, and she rallied on her last day before the election at UCLA alongside United Auto Workers Local 4811 and City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
On the campaign trail, Bass argued she had made enough progress to merit a second four-year term, branded Raman's views on policing and homelessness "extreme," and attacked her as "not ready for primetime" and too inexperienced to run a city of 3.8 million people. Raman answered with an advertisement showing an empty lectern at the site of a massive warehouse fire, the homeless epicentre of Skid Row and shuttered storefronts: "Our city is in crisis. Where is our mayor?" she asked.
What Raman has promised Los Angeles
Raman is promising to remove the police chief, whom she views as too accommodating with federal immigration authorities — a pledge with direct consequences for the city's large immigrant communities. "We will stand up against ICE in this city," she told the UCLA rally. "We will stand up for our LGBTQ+ community. We're going to stand up against corporate landlords. We're going to stand up for affordable housing and functioning streets. But we have to do it together." She has promised a new approach on homelessness — expanding medical teams for people in encampments to build trust and bring them indoors, and providing more housing instead of city-rented hotel rooms — and says her plans could reduce the number of people sleeping in tents and encampments by at least half by 2028, when Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games. Controller Mejia said Raman reduced homelessness in her own district by over half. She also campaigned on basic services: dirty, pothole-ridden streets, buckled sidewalks and broken streetlights. The Democratic Socialists of America narrowly voted to keep its endorsement of Raman days before the election, despite criticism from some members over her position on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which she called a legitimate form of peaceful protest but not part of her platform.
An India-born mayor-elect now leads the second-largest city in the United States — a landmark for the South Asian diaspora, including the large Punjabi community across California. Her promise to remove a police chief she sees as too close to federal immigration enforcement, and her pledge to 'stand up against ICE,' will be watched closely by immigrant families well beyond Los Angeles. UCLA, in her city, will serve as the Olympic Village in 2028, hosting more than 15,000 athletes.
What happens next
Vote counting continues after election day in Los Angeles County, so the final certified margin may shift, but with a lead of more than 34,000 votes and the incumbent's concession, the outcome is not in doubt. Bass has committed to a smooth transition. Raman takes office facing a homelessness crisis that has proved intractable despite billions spent across the region, a struggling entertainment industry, one of the world's busiest port complexes nearby, and the 2028 Olympic Games on the horizon. "We deserve a city that works for all of us," she told supporters at UCLA. "And I am so happy to be here with all of you, building that city together."