by Geoffrey Churchman

Born in India, Nithya Raman (45) defeated the incumbent Democrat Karen Bass. An urban planner, she had served on the LA city council since 2020. Although she only filed to run in the race hours before the deadline for the first round in the mayoral election, she shot up in the polls over the summer with support from the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Her policies include, unsurpringly, a “climate change plan” that she claims will get Los Angeles to “carbon neutrality” by 2030. Also unsurprisingly, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) police union strongly opposed her.

As of Friday, with 72% of the expected vote counted, Raman had 429,450 to Bass’ 394,796. In terms of percentage, that’s 52.1%-47.9%.

In Los Angeles a mayoral candidate who gets 50% or more votes in the first round — this year it took place on 2 June 2026 — wins the election outright. Since no candidate reached that, the top two candidates advanced to the general election in November. Raman actually polled second in the first round with 29% of the vote to centre-right candidate Spencer Pratt who got 26% Bass got 34%.

Undoubtedly, Karen Bass deserved to lose with the disaster of the Palisades fires in January 2025 among other failures which prioritised Wokeism over efficient Core Services. There’s not much cause for optimism that things will change which would be the case if Spencer Pratt had won, but at least an obviously incompetent mayor has paid the price for it.