The Guardian said a large volunteer network helped the collective slate
The Guardian wrote: “As a blue tsunami overtook US politics this week, Los Angeles saw a major shake-up of its own with a wave of democratic socialists elected to key offices.” Nithya Raman, the first democratic socialist to serve on the Los Angeles City Council, defeated incumbent Mayor Karen Bass to become the city’s next mayor. The Guardian wrote: “Even in the deep blue city, Raman’s victory was hardly a given, and marked a stunning win for the progressive wing of the party.” With her election, America’s two largest cities will now be run by democratic socialist mayors.
Los Angeles voters backed numerous DSA-LA-endorsed candidates. Angela Gonzales-Torres defeated incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez for a US House seat with 60.6% of the vote to Gomez’s 39.4%, according to the most recently available figures. Marissa Roy won the city attorney race with 67.39% of the vote, according to the latest data available. Other DSA members won seats on school boards and the Burbank City Council; DSA-LA said Burbank now has the first socialist-majority city council on the West Coast. The organization saw its largest-ever slate of candidate victories.
Gomez had served in Congress for nearly a decade and was endorsed by Aipac, which spent $2.7m in support of his candidacy. Gonzales-Torres described the war in Gaza as “a genocide” and said the “Israeli military is only able to commit with the financial and political support of the US government.”
Roy pledged to make the city attorney’s office the “largest public interest law office in the city” and to use “the law to fight for working people, immigrants, renters, consumers.” “These results show us what we’ve known for a long time: Angelenos are looking for an alternative to politicians beholden to billionaires and corporate interests,” Anna Gross, a DSA-LA steering member, said in a statement. “With representation across LA county, in the most powerful positions in city hall and for the first time in US Congress [Gonzales-Torres], we look forward to showing Angelenos what Democratic Socialist leadership can deliver.”
The Guardian said DSA support was significant for Raman, with a large network of volunteers canvassing for her across the city in the lead-up to the election. In describing the slate as a whole, the outlet said a large volunteer network helped democratic socialists win the mayorship, a US House seat and powerful positions in Los Angeles. Across the election season, DSA-LA volunteers knocked on more than 110,000 doors. The chapter said it had more than 6,000 members as of last month and that another 2,000 people joined that week alone.
Raman joined DSA in 2019 and was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2020, becoming the first democratic socialist to serve there after defeating an incumbent Democrat backed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles initiative at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, recalled that her election marked “a significant shift in the architecture of Los Angeles politics.” In the years since, voters have elected three other DSA candidates to the 14-member council.
“The DSA organization has made an impact on LA city politics since 2020 when they supported Nithya Raman the first time,” Yaroslavsky said. “They’re pretty sophisticated in the way they target their resources, [which] are human resources – they have a lot of campaign workers and precinct walkers.”
In an interview with The Guardian in September, DSA member Patrick Padilla said the organization’s platform has broad appeal, including among many people who do not identify as democratic socialists. The group focuses on affordable housing and tenant rights, immigrant rights, Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, among other issues, according to its website. “We’re coming to find that the status quo has not been serving everyday working Americans. And when I’m on the doors, I’m talking to people. People are just focused on how they can get by day to day,” Padilla said.
The chapter’s endorsement of Raman was complicated. Raman entered the mayoral race at the last minute after DSA-affiliated colleagues had already backed Bass, and another candidate was already in the running. DSA member Rae Huang also ran in the mayoral primary, and the chapter opted not to support any candidate in that contest. The organization censured Raman in 2024 for pursuing an endorsement from a Democrats for Israel group, and its decision to back her in this election came after internal debate. Even as the chapter endorsed her, other DSA-affiliated council members stood by Bass.
Shortly before the election, the organization’s national leaders considered rescinding the chapter’s support until Raman stated her position on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. A vote on the matter ultimately failed. The chapter was outspoken in its support of Raman, writing in a social media post: “YUP, that’s our Mayor!!!”
The Guardian wrote: “But her campaign was also helped by the fact that Karen Bass was deeply unpopular.” The outlet cited polling showing that Angelenos had long been frustrated about the state of the city and said resentment over Bass’s handling of the Palisades fire had damaged her. “If there hadn’t been the Palisades fire in January of last year, I don’t think Nithya would have run. And I don’t think Karen Bass would have been defeated,” Yaroslavsky said. “The majority of the people of the city, a significant majority, think that the city is on the wrong track. And the Palisades fire was really the poster child for all that people are unhappy about.”
The Guardian wrote: “While its the start of a new era in Los Angeles politics, the job of the mayor is the same.” Yaroslavsky said that once in office, Raman would have to build trust in communities that did not vote for her, a task the mayor-elect had acknowledged. “To every voter out there who voted for Mayor Bass or who chose not to vote in this election at all, please know this, I am going to city hall to work every single day to earn your trust and to earn your trust in this city again,” Raman said. She said that work starts now “so that we can build housing people can afford, parks for our children, 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.”