Nithya Raman Defeats Karen Bass In Los Angeles Mayor Race
The city council member and former ally of Bass won a race dominated by homelessness and the fallout from the 2025 wildfires. Bass conceded on Thursday and promised a smooth handover.
LOS ANGELES, Nov 6 – A year ago, few people in Los Angeles saw Nithya Raman as a potential future mayor. But on Thursday, she became one when Mayor Karen Bass conceded defeat and called to congratulate her.
Raman, a city council member backed by democratic socialists, beat Bass in a close and often bitter race. It is the first time since 2005 that a challenger has ousted a sitting mayor of Los Angeles.
The count is still ongoing. In the latest figures released Thursday by the Los Angeles County registrar, Raman had about 52.7 percent of the vote, while Bass had about 47.3 percent.
That was enough for Raman to win. In a written statement, Bass said it was not the result she had hoped for, but that she would ensure a smooth transition of power.
“The people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said.
Raman will become the city’s 44th mayor and the first person of South Asian heritage to lead Los Angeles.
In a video for her voters and volunteers, she said she was deeply honored. She promised homes that people can afford, parks for kids to play in, buses and trains that get people where they need to go, and a city that is safe for the people who work in it and the families who live in it.
“Los Angeles, I’m deeply honored to be your next mayor,” Raman said.
She also took a moment to praise Bass and the long years she had spent in public life.
The two women were on the same side not so long ago. Raman, who was born in India and trained as an urban planner, first won her seat on the council in 2020 as a voice for homeless people. Over time, she grew closer to the city’s Democratic leaders, and to Bass most of all.
She had even backed Bass for a second term. Then, just weeks later and only hours before the deadline, she filed to run against her. On the night of the June primary, she was in third place.
From there, the race turned into a fight between two Democrats, and it got personal. Bass’s team said Raman had opposed clearing homeless camps and was weak on crime. Raman said Bass had let the city fall apart, and that Los Angeles needed a mayor who could get things done.
She also went after the way Bass had handled the deployment of National Guard troops in the city, The Washington Post reported.
Above all, the race was about homelessness. In 2025, about 44,000 people in the city of Los Angeles were counted as homeless, according to the yearly tally by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Some 27,000 of them had no shelter at all and were sleeping on the street, in cars or in camps. Nearly 5,000 lived in the Skid Row area downtown.
Bass had made the issue one of her top priorities when she took office four years ago. A former six-term member of Congress, she had also worked as a nurse and as a physician assistant in an emergency room. She was the first woman ever elected mayor of Los Angeles.
But many housing advocates felt she had not done nearly enough. They argued that despite her promises, homelessness remained widespread and that the city needed faster, more aggressive action to build affordable housing and move people off the streets.
The fires hurt her too. In January 2025, the Palisades fire killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,800 buildings. It was one of the worst in the city’s history, and many people were angry about how the city responded.
At the same time, the Eaton fire tore through Altadena and other places east of the city. That fire killed 19 people and wrecked more than 9,400 homes, shops and other buildings.
Raman’s win puts her in a growing group of young progressives and democratic socialists who have beaten more centrist Democrats in big races across the country.
Many people have compared her to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won his race a year ago. She has mostly welcomed that. But she has also pushed back on the idea that she is just a copy of him, and told Vanity Fair that she is her own person.
She will take charge of a city preparing to host the 2028 Olympic Games, a role that will place her at the center of one of the world’s largest sporting events. The task will involve overseeing preparations for athletes, visitors, and infrastructure, while ensuring the city delivers a safe, successful, and memorable Games.
