Los Angeles Voters Oust Mayor Amid City Crisis

Nithya Raman defeated incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles, taking the mayor’s office after campaigning against the city’s handling of homelessness, public services and policing. Raman, a City Council member backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, said the city had reached a “breaking point.” The contest changes who will lead City Hall; the people living in encampments, navigating broken sidewalks and waiting for city services remain at the center of the problems the campaign put onstage.

Who Pays for City Hall’s Failures

Raman, 45, criticized Bass’ homelessness efforts as ineffective and promised to expand medical teams serving people in encampments and on the streets. She said the teams would build trust and help bring people indoors. She also promised more housing so people could leave hotels rented by the city for homeless residents. Raman said her plans could reduce the number of people sleeping in tents and encampments by at least half by 2028, when Los Angeles will host the Olympic Games.

The scale of the problem has resisted the official fix: billions of dollars have been spent in the region, yet homelessness remains difficult to solve. A Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll conducted Oct. 19 to 25 found about four in 10 likely voters said reducing homeless encampments should be a top priority for the next mayor. About three in 10 named public safety or affordable housing. Those figures put the cost of City Hall’s choices plainly: people without housing live with the consequences while the city’s leaders debate how to manage them.

Raman also promised to oust the police chief, whom she considers too accommodating toward federal immigration authorities. She said she would improve basic services amid dirty, pothole-ridden streets, buckled sidewalks and broken streetlights. Her campaign described a city where the apparatus meant to serve residents has failed at basic tasks. In an advertisement, Raman said, “Our city is in crisis,” and asked, “Where is our mayor?” The ad showed an empty lectern at a site of a warehouse fire from the previous summer, Skid Row and shuttered malls and storefronts.

A Different Name, the Same Governing Machinery

Raman said she would “build housing that people can afford, parks for our children to play in, a transit system that can get people where they need to go, a city that is safe for its working people and its families, and a city government that is actually capable of delivering on its promises.” The promises are broad. The region’s billions in homelessness spending, alongside the continuing difficulty of solving homelessness, show how little a public pledge alone tells residents about what will change.

The campaign ran through the usual channels of municipal power. Raman won support from Our Revolution, founded by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the Sierra Club, but had few endorsements from prominent local politicians. Bass had support from Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nearly every City Council member. Billionaire developer Rick Caruso said he was voting for Bass without formally endorsing her. Raman also held a widely publicized private meeting with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was not involved in the race. The campaign account names these allies and endorsements; it does not describe a community-run alternative to City Hall.

The Bosses’ Warnings

Bass became the first Los Angeles mayor in two decades to lose a reelection bid, according to the AP. The AP said her first term was undone by the deadly Palisades Fire, which began while she was out of the country and caught the fire department unprepared. Bass had argued that her record merited another term and called Raman “not ready for primetime,” inexperienced to run a city of 3.8 million people, and “extreme” on policing and homelessness.

Raman had initially endorsed Bass, once her ally, then entered the race hours before the filing deadline. She said the city had stopped being a place where people could build, open, film and create things. “For too long our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do,” she said. Bass called Raman to congratulate her and said, “While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken.”

President Donald Trump, asked about democratic socialists’ mayoral victories, said, “we’ll see what happens,” and warned that the effects could be irreversible. “There’ll be a point at which if people are unhappy, they’ll be changed,” Trump said. “But unfortunately, usually that happens so late that you’ll never be able to bring back a city or a country or a state. You know — when it goes too far.”