Nithya Raman Sets Up LA Mayor Clash

Nithya Raman, a Democratic Socialist in the mould of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has emerged as the challenger to embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in the November election to lead the second-biggest US city.

She took the second spot in the open primary election, edging out the Republican candidate Spencer Pratt, to face Democrat Bass in a runoff, according to media calculations reported on Monday, even as the official counting was continuing almost a week after the election held last Tuesday.

Raman, like Mamdani, made affordability for the majority in the city of Hollywood glamour the focus of her campaign, and pins her hopes on riding a wave of grassroots Democratic Socialist progressivism.

If she defeats Bass in November, the two largest cities will be led by leftist Democrats of Indian heritage.

Some polls put the disapproval rate of Bass at over 55 per cent, while only 35 per cent of voters had an unfavourable view of Raman.

Raman, 44, was born in Kerala to a Tamil family and moved to the US when she was six years old.

After getting a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's in urban planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she went back to India to set up a research organisation, Transparent Chennai, that worked on sanitation and environment issues.

Returning to the US, she worked for the city before taking up the cause of the homeless.

She was elected to the Los Angeles City Council riding a wave of progressivism in 2020, setting the stage for her mayoral candidacy.

Bass, a 76-year-old veteran of California politics who was a speaker of the state Assembly, succeeded Eric Garcetti, who was appointed US Ambassador to India by former President Joe Biden.

She came under criticism for her handling of the fires that swallowed vast areas of sprawling Los Angeles, destroying over 12,000 homes and 4,000 other buildings.

When the fires started in January last year, Bass, who is African American, had been away in Ghana, and grappled with dealing with it and its continuing aftermath.

Behind the facade of movie glitter lurked the problems of homelessness, high cost of housing, and delayed response by city emergency services, which Raman said she would try to fix.

"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," she said.

Bass was earlier declared the top candidate in the mayoral primary after she crossed the 34 per cent mark.

As of Monday, she had 28.6 per cent of the votes to Pratt's 25.8 per cent, leading to the media declaration.

Pratt had been leading for the second spot till Sunday, when Raman overtook him.

President Donald Trump, who backed Pratt, alleged the election was rigged, repeating allegations he has made about the US electoral system since his defeat in 2020.

"No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!" Trump posted on Truth Social about the Los Angeles primary early Monday.