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LA councilor Nithya Raman eyes Mayoral office
Raman is the first LA City Council member backed by DSA, which helped elect NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani last fall.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Sun, 08, Feb 2026
- 23:15 EST
- 20
Nithya Raman / Wikimedia commons
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman announced her candidature for the city's mayoral office on Feb. 7, in a last minute announcement just hours before the filing deadline.
In the upcoming Democratic primaries, Kerala-born Raman would be going up against former reality television personality Spencer Pratt, Housing Now California deputy director Rae Huang, veteran city engineer Asaad Alnajjar and the incumbent mayor, Karen Bass.
Talking at the press conference, she stated that the city “is no longer a place of opportunity”, in a direct attack on the incumbent Democratic ally, Bass.
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Raman noted, “Los Angeles is at a breaking point, and people feel it in the most basic ways.”
She added, “Housing costs are forcing families out of the city, a homelessness system that lacks clear ownership and accountability is leaving people stuck in crisis while the city cycles from emergency to emergency. Too many people don’t feel safe walking down their own blocks at night, even as crime comes down because broken street lights stay broken and the city can’t seem to manage the basics.”
She continued, “And while everyone agrees we need more housing, the city still struggles to lead with urgency, building too little too slowly while working families get priced out over and over again.”
Nithya Raman became the first Los Angeles City Council member elected with backing from the Democratic Socialists of America, the same group that achieved a major win last fall by helping elect Zohran Mamdani as New York City Mayor.
Raman is an urban planner by training and also a homelessness activist. She became the first woman sworn in to the LA City Council in 2022. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Urban Planning from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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