Is Nithya Raman America’s next Mamdani? Indian-origin candidate advances for LA Mayor election

While Pratt had long been holding on to the second spot in the competition with enough votes on his side, the weekend flipped it all around, as mail-in ballots postmarked as late as June 2 continued to be counted. As of late Sunday, Raman was leading by about 0.4 points, or 3,100 votes, with the Associated Press further estimating that fewer than 150,000 ballots remain to be counted.

Raman achieved this feat with just 115 days to make her case to Los Angeles voters after making a surprise last-minute entry into the race. The progressive politician was the last of the major candidates to file for last week’s primary. Her next stop? Raman has got a chance to lead the second-largest city in the United States, as she’s headed for the November election, where she will face off against incumbent mayor Karen Bass.

Incredibly honoured by the results, she thanked voters for giving her the opportunity to advance to the general election for the Mayor of Los Angeles, adding, “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.”

“To the thousands of supporters who knocked doors, made calls, sent texts, donated, and opened their homes for events across the city, and to everyone else who made this moment possible: thank you, from the bottom of my heart,” the Indian-origin politician wrote on X. “Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues. 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.”

Who is Nithya Raman?

The rising progressive star’s family immigrated to the US from Kerala, India, when she was just 6 years old. She became a naturalised citizen about two decades later at the age of 22. As an immigrant, her professional and personal journey has taken her back and forth between the US and India. Currently, she lives in Silver Lake, California, with her husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, and her young twins.

After her master’s degree in urban planning at MIT, she eventually returned to India. Given her educational qualifications, her subsequent work in New Delhi helped instill an understanding of large-scale homelessness and poverty, according to Vogue.

The same sentiment forms the basis of her campaign for LA mayor, as she plans on solving the city’s homelessness crisis.

Nithya Raman’s campaign promise states, “When I’m mayor, we’ll reduce the number of people sleeping in tents and encampments by at least 50% by the 2028 Olympics.”

“By the end of my first term, the City will have developed the capacity to effectively eliminate long-term encampments throughout the city in the areas Angelenos live, work, play, shop, worship, and go to school.”

After spending a significant portion of her adult life in the Indian capital for her professional arc, Raman moved to Los Angeles, USA, in 2013, and started working for the city administrative officer of LA. As part of her job, she put together a report on city spending and housing instability. It only helped her further understand the disproportionate amount of money spent on incarcerating people facing homelessness.

Years down the line, she used her experience to found the neighbourhood outreach program SELAH, a nonprofit empowering a network of access centres offering food, clothes, showers, case management and other resources to the native residents of LA who have nowhere to go.

Currently representing District 4 at the Los Angeles City Council, Raman has earned her name as an urban planner and a graduate of America’s elite schools, Harvard and MIT.

According to her official LA city profile, she serves as Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, Vice Chair of the Rules, Elections, and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, and member of the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, Energy and Environment Committee, and the newly formed Ad Hoc Committee on Unarmed Crisis Prevention, Intervention, and Community Services.

Raman is also representing Los Angeles on the Governing Board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District and serves on the Board of the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA).

Although now a rival to incumbent mayor Karen Bass, Raman was nominated by her to serve as Vice Chair on the LA County Executive Committee for Regional Homeless Alignment.

Could Nithya Raman be the ‘Next Mamdani’?

Like Zohran Mamdani’s historic New York City mayoral win last year, Raman has already consolidated her own share of “firsts” on the US political landscape. Her surprise entry to the LA mayor race inevitably drew comparisons to the democratic socialist, who, like Raman, traces his roots to a successful immigrant story and India.

Running for City Council in 202020, she registered a one-of-a-kind victory at the time, becoming the first Asian-American woman and the first South Asian ever to serve on the City Council. Her role didn’t end with the landmark milestone, as she was decisively elected to a second term as well.

Mamdani, on the other hand, was born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent, making him the first naturalised immigrant to serve as mayor since Abraham Beame in the 1970s. His remarkable history-making victory in NYC not only made him the city’s youngest mayor since the 19th century, but it also stood as a testament to Indian-origin immigrants embracing the American Dream, especially at a time when the current administration has severely vilified migrants.

Kerala-born Nithya Raman is poised to continue her history-defying track record if she wins the November mayoral elections. If elected, she would become Los Angeles’ first Indian-American and South Asian mayor.

Trump, Musk fuel ‘rigged’ LA mayor vote conspiracy theories

Amid the continuing vote count,Trump and other conservative figures resorted to using his infamous and unsubstantiated playbook of branding elections as “rigged” when the tally switched to favouring the progressive mayoral hopeful.

“The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS,” the MAGA leader wrote in a social media post after the California primary. He repeated similar claims in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, which he ultimately stormed out of midway through the interaction when pressed to present evidence for his unverified claims of voter fraud.

Although the Republican leader didn’t formally endorse Pratt, he did put his support behind the LA mayor candidate due to his pro-MAGA affiliations.

“I’d like to see him do well. I don’t know him. I assume he probably supports me,” Trump told a reporter in May. “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”

Their conspiracy theories were further fuelled by a misreading of data this week. First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli — a Trump appointee who leads the Los Angeles-based US attorney’s office – ultimately addressed the viral speculation, saying, “There was a claim circulating on social media about an election night ballot update at the Los Angeles Registrar of Voters where one candidate received zero votes. We reviewed official county records. The claim is false. Each candidate received votes in every update.”

The Associated Press has also issued a statement to multiple US media outlets, shedding light on the “lag in an automated update,” which resulted in some candidates’ votes being added in one update, “and the other candidates followed about a minute later.”

As affirmed by the AP, Pratt was in the second batch, which means that vote counts for him were a bit delayed, leading to an initial appearance that he gained zero additional votes in one of the updates while other candidates garnered thousands of votes.