Democratic socialist Nithya Raman defeats Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor’s race

City Council member Nithya Raman has defeated incumbent Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayoral race, NBC News projects, capping off a rapid political ascent for a progressive challenger who railed against the “broken status quo” in the country’s second-largest metropolis. Raman, 45, who is part of the Democratic Socialists of America, unseated Bass, a former six-term congresswoman and a fixture of California’s political scene for decades. The result means three major cities will be led by democratic socialists, with Raman joining New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Janeese Lewis George, who won the mayor’s race in Washington, D.C., this week. Bass faced intense scrutiny over her response to a January 2025 wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the most destructive in Los Angeles history. The blaze erupted while she was in the West African nation of Ghana attending a presidential inauguration. It went on to destroy thousands of homes and kill 12 people.

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