Los Angeles voters have removed Mayor Karen Bass and handed the job to Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist on the City Council, making Bass the first sitting mayor of the nation's second-largest city in at least two decades to lose a reelection bid.
Bass conceded Thursday morning, when the latest count showed Raman leading 52% to 48%. She said she had called Raman to congratulate her and promised a smooth transition. Raman, who was born in India, will become the city's first South Asian mayor when she takes office next month.
The result signals a generational turnover. Raman is 45, Bass is 73, and a UC Berkeley/L.A. Times poll taken days before the election found Raman drawing overwhelming support from voters ages 30 to 39.
Raman will join a growing bloc of democratic socialists running major cities, including Zohran Mamdani in New York, Katie Wilson in Seattle and Janeese Lewis George, who won the Washington, D.C., mayor's race Tuesday. Her win also came amid a national Democratic wave.
President Donald Trump, asked in the Oval Office about those victories, said the country would see what happens. He warned that by the time unhappy voters replace such leaders, the damage may be too late to undo.
Raman has vowed to remove Police Chief Jim McDonnell, whom she sees as too accommodating toward federal immigration authorities. She also wants to fix long-neglected basics such as potholes, buckled sidewalks and broken streetlights.
On homelessness, she has called Bass's approach ineffective. Her plan would add medical teams that work with people living on the streets and create more housing to move people out of city-rented hotels. She says it could cut the number of people in tents and encampments at least in half by 2028, when Los Angeles hosts the Olympics.
For too long our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do
Nithya Raman, Los Angeles mayor-elect
How the upset happened
Polling showed homelessness weighed heavily on voters: about 4 in 10 likely voters in an October survey named reducing encampments as a top priority for the next mayor.
Raman had once endorsed Bass, her former ally. She filed to challenge her on Feb. 7, the final day possible, arguing the city had hit a breaking point, after polls showed the mayor was deeply unpopular.
In the primary, Raman placed second behind Bass, holding off TV personality Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades Fire and finished third.
Bass entered the general election with the establishment behind her: Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nearly the entire City Council, the county Democratic Party, the Chamber of Commerce and the county labor federation. Billionaire developer Rick Caruso said he voted for her without formally endorsing her.
Raman countered with three unions that split from the labor federation, among them UNITE HERE Local 11 and the United Auto Workers, plus Our Revolution and the Sierra Club. Hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick put more than $8.5 million into ads boosting Raman and attacking Bass.
Why Bass lost ground
Outside spending still favored the mayor, with more than $16 million supporting Bass or opposing Raman, against $13 million on the other side. The police officers' union ran attack ads over Raman's opposition to an ordinance that lets police clear encampments near schools and other sensitive sites, a policy she said only pushed people down the street.
Bass's standing collapsed after the deadly Palisades Fire, which broke out while she was out of the country and drew sharp criticism of the fire department's response. The latest homeless count also showed numbers climbing again after a two-year decline.
A divided City Hall
During the campaign, Bass called Raman's positions on policing and homelessness extreme and questioned whether she was experienced enough to run a city of 3.8 million people.
Raman may struggle to build a governing coalition. All but one of her council colleagues backed Bass, including three DSA members, and City Controller Kenneth Mejia was the only elected City Hall official to endorse her.
She could gain an ally in the city attorney's office, where DSA-backed Marissa Roy leads Deputy District Attorney John McKinney.
