Progressive Nithya Raman advances to November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Progressive city council member Nithya Raman has advanced to a November runoff against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, setting up an unexpected matchup between two Democrats and former political allies to run the struggling city of nearly 4 million.

The outcome means Spencer Pratt, a Republican and former reality television personality from “The Hills,” is out of the running. His candidacy had drawn national attention because of his celebrity and willingness to challenge liberal governance in a city dominated by Democrats, but the buzz did not translate into enough votes to make the runoff.

Raman made a last-minute entry into the race, after she had endorsed Bass for reelection. She was elected to the council with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the election will test whether voters in the heavily Democratic city want to move further to the political left to address long-running problems of homelessness, buckled streets and sidewalks and climbing rent and home prices.

The race also has historical markers. Bass is the first Black woman to hold the post, and Raman could be the first South Asian woman in the job.

“If you’re as frustrated by the broken status quo as I am, I hope you’ll join our movement to build a city that works for everyone,” Raman said in a statement. “For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections. Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services and a city that has stopped working for them.”

“A campaign against Nithya Raman, who allows encampments near schools and cuts the police force, is one Mayor Bass looks forward to winning,” said Bass campaign strategist Douglas Herman.

The mayoral matchup sets the field in one of the state’s two marquee races. In the other, the California governor’s race, Democrat Xavier Becerra has advanced to the general election but it’s not yet clear if he will face Republican Steve Hilton or fellow Democrat Tom Steyer.

The mayoral race was technically nonpartisan, so the candidates appeared on the ballot without party identification next to their names.

The election was not a vote of confidence in Bass, who according to incomplete returns received under 35% of the vote, a vulnerable position for an incumbent.

Raman had been running in third until Sunday, but she gained more votes with every update provided by election officials in Los Angeles since June 2, primary day.

Bass represents the Democratic establishment as the incumbent mayor, and she’s backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with influential labor unions. She served in the state Legislature and Congress before becoming mayor in 2022 and was under consideration to be former President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020.

Raman — in her first run for citywide office — has promised to speed up housing construction, bring back entertainment industry jobs and improve services in a city known for dirty streets, gridlock and homeless encampments that are commonplace in many neighborhoods.

“What we are doing right now is just not working,” Raman says. “LA’s primary strategy for homelessness has been to move encampments from one block to another, from your block to your neighbor’s block and back again. … It’s political theater.”

California’s vote count takes a long time

It took nearly a week to determine who would face Bass in November due to California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter and they are counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.

Los Angeles, like other counties in California, processes and counts mail ballots in roughly the order they are received, so the last ones returned are the last ones counted.

On Tuesday night after polls closed, Los Angeles released results from mail ballots that had been returned early and already processed as well as votes cast that day. Those votes put Bass in the lead with Pratt running in second and Raman behind in third. Since then, the county has been processing and releasing results from mail ballots that arrived later.

Election data shows that large numbers of Democrats held onto their mail ballots and returned them in the race’s final days, which helps explain why Bass and Raman have been doing better than Pratt in the votes counted since primary day.

Raman’s political positions have shifted

Born in India, Raman moved to the United States as a child and earned degrees from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied urban planning.

She has opposed efforts to prohibit homeless people from setting up tents within 500 feet (152 meters) of schools and daycare centers. However, she appears to have softened her opposition to no-camping zones, which were intended to curb the spread of encampments and clear streets. She voted against dozens of them on the council but later said she would not block them if elected mayor.

Raman’s positions on policing in the city have also changed.

She once talked of a department that would be much smaller and posted “defund the police” on social media in 2020. She did not support the mayor’s 2023 police contract, which she said was too expensive for the financially strapped city.

More recently, she said the Los Angeles Police Department should remain at its current size, about 8,600, down from about 10,000 in 2020. The police union has taunted her in ads, calling her “Flip Floppin’ Raman.”

In diverse Los Angeles, mayors are elected by building coalitions, ethnically and geographically. And to surpass 50% of the vote and win, Raman will need to find more supporters.

“I don’t think it’s impossible, but she is going to have to expand beyond her ideological base,” said Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who sees Bass as vulnerable.

“The people who didn’t vote for Nithya weren’t voting against her, they were voting for somebody else. Karen (Bass) had a good number of people who were voting against her,” Carrick added.

Though Raman and Pratt are political opposites, both have attracted voters who aren’t happy with the city’s status quo.

Tanika Vickers, who works for a housing nonprofit in Los Angeles, said that she felt like she was part of a group of people who work and pay taxes but have been “forgotten.” She said she was frustrated with the way tax dollars were being spent, especially “throwing” more money toward homelessness without results.

She said she voted Raman for mayor because she was most qualified to execute her plans and fulfill what the city needs.

“I think that we are all looking for change,” she said.

Michael R. Blood, The Associated Press