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. Most notably, Nithya Raman, the first democratic socialist to serve on the Los Angeles city council, prevailed over incumbent Karen Bass to become the next mayor. 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. The wins for the organization didn’t stop there. Los Angeles voters backed numerous DSA-LA-endorsed candidates, including Marissa Roy for city attorney, and Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated the incumbent Jimmy Gomez for a US House seat.
Other members won seats on school boards and the Burbank city council, meaning Burbank has the first socialist-majority city council on the west coast, DSA-LA said. The organization saw its largest-ever slate of candidate victories after an election season in which volunteers knocked on more than 110,000 doors. But her campaign was also helped by the fact that Karen Bass was deeply unpopular.
Polling has long shown that Angelenos are frustrated about the state of the city, and resentment over Bass’s handling of the Palisades fire damaged her. And I don’t think Karen Bass would have been defeated,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, the director of the Los Angeles initiative at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. And the Palisades fire was really the poster child for all that people are unhappy about.” This week’s victories have boosted DSA-LA, which had more than 6,000 members as of last month, and has seen another 2,000 people join this week alone, the chapter said.
The organization has significantly expanded its power and reach in recent years. Raman, who joined DSA in 2019, was the first elected to city council in 2020 in a stunning victory that saw her defeat an incumbent Democrat backed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Yaroslavsky said at the time that her election marked a “a significant shift in the architecture of Los Angeles politics”, he recalled.
In the years since, the city has voted in three other DSA candidates to serve on its 14-member council. The group focuses on an array of issues, including affordable housing and tenant rights, immigrant rights, Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, among others, according to its website. And when I’m on the doors, I’m talking to people.
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