By Jim Newton, CalMatters

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The race for mayor of Los Angeles is underway and will unfold along lines few expected, featuring City Councilmember Nithya Raman as a real threat — if still an underdog — to Mayor Karen Bass.  

And the contest will not only choose a mayor; it will also illuminate what kind of Democratic city Los Angeles is.

To understand the significance of this election, it’s first important to debunk a few misconceptions: This election is not a microcosm of California’s governor’s race, in which big names such as former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla took a pass and left a middling field to fight it out. 

In Los Angeles, the notion that big names skipped the contest started from a misunderstanding of the city.

Lots of commentators, starting with the less-than-insightful Bill Maher, imagined that Bass was vulnerable to a challenge from her right, specifically from the man she beat last time, developer Rick Caruso. Those pundits then imagined Bass was in the clear once Caruso passed. 

Caruso, in fact, never was a credible threat to Bass. Caruso spent $100 million of his own money four years ago for the privilege of losing to Bass by 10 percentage points. His status as a former Republican who made a last-minute switch to become a Democrat rendered his candidacy for mayor a longshot then. And private polling in this race shows the city still doesn’t have much use for him. 

He toyed with running right up to the end, but his decision to pass just means he’ll have more money this time next year. 

Similarly, former LA schools superintendent Austin Beutner looked to fill the narrow lane for rich, white guys in Los Angeles races. Beutner is an actual Democrat whose politics are closer to the city’s, but he faced the significant challenge of convincing voters he would be to Bass’ left on housing issues — hard optics for a businessman whose political career has been more about dabbling than devotion. He cut his campaign short after his 22-year-old daughter died. 

The prominence given to those two non-candidates reinforced a myth about Bass, that her rough performance in the early days of the Palisades fire exposed her to a challenge from a more conservative opponent, who could rally the forces of public order and safety to unseat a flailing, liberal Democrat. 

That myth had shades of race and paternalism — that LA was broken and needed a white guy to come put things right — and it reflected more of a pundit view than a real analysis of the electorate. In the myth, Bass skated free when Caruso and Beutner ended up passing, thus giving her an open field to a second term.

Most of that is wrong.

In fact, Bass’ open flank was on her left, for as difficult as it may be for those outside Los Angeles to comprehend, Karen Bass — a liberal, Black woman who cut her political teeth responding to police violence and crack cocaine’s  devastation of Los Angeles — is the most conservative mayor this city is likely to see for some time.

Which brings this to the real mayoral contest, the real test of Bass’ leadership. With just hours to go before the filing deadline, Councilmember Raman threw her hat in the mayoral ring.

Raman is exactly not-Rick Caruso, which is exactly what makes her worth watching.

Her challenge to Mayor Bass is from the mayor’s left, not her right. Raman is an ally and admirer of Bass, not a stodgy critic. She’s certainly never been a Republican. And, most importantly, she is a genuine contender for the office, not a rich guy looking to burnish his ego with an expensive dash to second place.

Raman’s decision to enter the race took many observers — including me — by surprise.  I figured Raman would not run against an official she has endorsed and been endorsed by.

Moreover, the talk of the town in recent months was that the Democratic Socialists, who wield increasing influence in local politics, would stick with Bass this time and then find a candidate of their own to run in four years, when Bass would be termed out.

Who is Raman?

Instead, Raman took a hard look at Bass’ numbers and decided to strike. That irritated some of her colleagues on the left, many of whom were already pledged to Bass and committed to the four-year timeline. 

It was not, she told me last week, the result of any sharp break between herself and Bass, for whom Raman said she has “immense respect.” It was, she said, “more of a slow boil as opposed to an overnight change of heart.”

Raman is whip smart, well-spoken, ideologically committed and armed with degrees from MIT and Harvard. She’s already won two elections to the city council, ousting an incumbent and defending her seat, albeit with significant help from her then-ally, Mayor Bass.

And Raman has a full and ideologically telling list of positions and achievements.

She helped create the city’s mansion tax, which imposes a special levy on sales of real estate valued at more than $5 million. She has argued for a humane response to homelessness, both touting the city’s successes in recent years and lamenting what she regards as a lack of urgency around the problem. 

And she has been a persistent critic of spending on the LAPD. Just last month, she voted against a proposal from the mayor to hire more officers to compensate for LAPD attrition; back in the day, Raman argued that the city should “defund the police.” 

Her challenge today is twofold: to reach voters with her message and to test the electorate itself. 

The former is made harder by the impromptu feel of this effort. A successful campaign for mayor usually is a years-long undertaking that starts with gentle overtures and eventually hardens into polling, fundraising, events, rallies and advertising. 

Raman is trying to compress all of that into a quick run to June, when she hopes to hold Bass below 50%. That’s made easier by the big field, some 40 candidates in all. 

If Bass gets more than 50% in the June election, often incorrectly called a primary, she wins. But if Raman can keep Bass below 50% and finish in second place, that would give her the chance to tackle the mayor one-on-one in a runoff in November.

That’s the logistical side. Philosophically, at its core, Raman’s campaign probes the city’s political identity, asking whether it is a liberal, Democratic bastion or something to the left of that, a vanguard of a new Democratic Socialism.

“This is a progressive city,” Raman said last week, adding that Los Angeles is the type of city that wants to see homelessness responded to “with compassion and care rather than policing.”

Are LA's Democratic voters like New York's?

All of this takes place against the recent history of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayor’s race, which raises the obvious question of whether Los Angeles is prepared to elect a Democratic Socialist of its own. In one sense, the answer to that is yes: LA’s electorate is at least as liberal as New York’s, arguably more so. 

But elections are not won by ideological affinity. They are won by beating opponents. In New York, Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo, who carried a powerful family name but had done his level-best to sully it. In Los Angeles, even voters who don’t approve of Karen Bass’ work as mayor like her. Heck, even Raman likes her.

Could Raman catch fire the way that Mamdani did? Yes. She has much of his dignity, credentials, attractiveness and flash. And she has a receptive electorate. 

But Mamdani’s victory was notable precisely because it was so unusual. Raman’s challenge is greater, she has a later start and she faces a more talented, respected and formidable opponent. It will be a test for the city of Los Angeles.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.