Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman has moved ahead of Mayor Karen Bass in both a major new poll and two prediction markets, raising a question that extends well beyond California: Is the political coalition that carried Zohran Mamdani to New York City Hall beginning to reproduce itself on the other side of the country? A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, put Raman at 39 percent among likely voters and Bass at 28 percent, although a substantial 33 percent remained undecided. Raman had finished behind Bass in June’s primary, 29 percent to 34 percent, according to official results.
Traders have noticed the shift. As of Friday, Kalshi priced Raman at roughly 57 percent to win the November 3 runoff, against 42 percent for Bass, while Polymarket put Raman at about 58 percent. To be clear, though, prediction markets measure what traders are willing to wager rather than what voters will necessarily do, and with a third of likely voters undecided, the race remains unsettled.
Still, Raman’s rise makes Los Angeles a good test of how Mamdani changed urban politics across America. Mamdani’s breakthrough in New York was a triumph of democratic socialism. His campaign, however, organized that politics around an intensely practical subject: the cost of living.
He ran on freezing rents for rent-stabilized tenants, fare-free buses, universal child care and city-owned grocery stores. His 2025 Democratic primary victory was powered heavily by younger and middle-class voters, renters and a coalition that cut across some of New York’s traditional political divisions. Raman is running on terrain that rhymes with Mamdani’s without copying his program.
Her campaign puts affordability at the center, promising substantially more housing, stronger protections for renters and a city government that works better on basic services. She is also a Democratic Socialists of America member, and DSA-LA endorsed her this month after more than 60 percent of participating members voted to do so. John Mollenkopf, distinguished professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and an expert on urban politics, told Newsweek that Mamdani’s success combined dissatisfaction with establishment politics with changes in the electorate, including immigration and “the rise of a new generation of knowledge workers facing uncertain career prospects.” “This is not a combination unique to New York," he said.
"It extends to many other strong market, ‘no majority’ cities like Los Angeles.” That may be the more useful way to understand an L.A. Los Angeles certainly checks the boxes. Nearly two-thirds of Angelenos rent, according to Raman’s campaign, while Census data puts the city’s homeownership rate at just 36 percent and median gross rent at $1,933.
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