Nithya Raman defeats Karen Bass in Los Angeles mayoral race

Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman has defeated Mayor Karen Bass, according to projections by NBC News and CBS News, ending Bass’ bid for another term and elevating a progressive challenger who campaigned against what she called the city’s “broken status quo.”

Raman, 45, and Bass, a former six-term congresswoman, are both Democrats. Raman announced her surprise campaign in February after previously endorsing Bass for reelection. She called her bid a “long shot” during the primary but finished ahead of former reality television star Spencer Pratt, joining Bass in the November contest.

The race centered in part on homelessness and housing costs. Raman, a former urban planner and activist, accused Bass of mismanaging both issues and criticized City Hall for what she described as “a reluctance to move forward with the transformative policy change that this city needs right now.” Bass argued that Raman was “not ready for primetime” after six years on the council, NBC News reported.

Bass also faced scrutiny over her response to the January 2025 wildfire in Pacific Palisades, according to NBC News. The fire broke out while she was in Ghana for a presidential inauguration. It killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, making it the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history, NBC reported.

A survey released shortly before the election by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times found Bass and Raman tied at 40% among likely voters, CBS News reported. The poll showed that 41% of Pratt’s primary voters had shifted to Bass, up from 22% earlier, while 14% supported Raman and 45% remained undecided.

“A lot of the voters who were previously supporting Spencer Pratt in the primary have now weighed in, and they have moved to Bass,” Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS poll, told CBS News.

Raman was elected to the City Council in 2020. Before that, she co-chaired the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Homelessness Committee and co-founded a nonprofit focused on homelessness, according to CBS News. In 2025, she introduced a measure limiting annual rent increases for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments built before 1978. It passed 13-2. CBS reported that she hopes to pursue similar work to help small businesses.

Raman is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America but has emphasized her independence from the group, NBC News reported. Her victory puts her alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Janeese Lewis George, who won Washington, D.C.’s mayoral race this week, as democratic socialists leading major cities, according to NBC. NBC also reported that Raman and Bass differed over Israel’s war in Gaza: At a September forum, Raman said she agreed with the characterization of Israel’s actions against Palestinians as genocide, while Bass rejected that label.

Bass, Los Angeles’ 43rd mayor, has said this will be her last campaign for office, CBS News reported. Raman, who represents a council district stretching from the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains, will take office as the city prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.