Politics
Commentary: By running for mayor, Nithya Raman will learn how left L.A. really is — or isn’t
On the last day of January, hundreds of people filled the pews of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown to hear not the word of God but the gospel of the Democratic Socialists of America.
It was the local chapter’s bimonthly meeting and also a kickoff event for a year during which they planned to build on an already impressive foothold in L.A. politics. Four of their own are council members and the two up for reelection — Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez — received standing ovations after their impassioned speeches. They implored the faithful to believe that anything is politically possible in a year when President Trump is waging war on Los Angeles and one of their own, Zohran Mamdani, is the mayor of New York.
Among the true believers was someone who arrived late that day: L.A.’s original democratic socialist insurgent, Nithya Raman.
She shocked the city’s political class in 2020 by beating Councilmember David Ryu — the first time in 17 years that an incumbent lost their seat. Her upset blazed the way for Hernandez and Soto-Martínez in 2022 and fellow DSAer Ysabel Jurado in 2024. They’ve created a progressive bloc that has helped Mayor Karen Bass implement her agenda, offering Her Honor cover from critics on the left while also pushing for democratic socialist principles such as less police spending and more intervention programs.
Raman kept a low profile at the DSA-LA event, according to attendees. The 44-year-old listened to her colleagues’ speeches and those of other hopefuls, made small talk with fellow members and then left.
There was no hint that afternoon of the political earthquake she uncorked this Saturday, when Raman announced a mayoral run against longtime ally Bass. The council member described the mayor to The Times as an “icon” who nevertheless needs to be replaced because “Los Angeles is at a breaking point.”
I can only imagine Bass — whom Raman publicly endorsed just a month ago — was surprised.
The mayor seems vulnerable, for sure. From her handling of the Palisades fire to crumbling infrastructure to the economy and so much more, critics maintain Bass spent all of last year living up to the old Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams duet: She did things too much, too little and too late. This was all before sources told The Times last week that Bass ordered an after-action report on the Palisades fire be — no pun intended — watered down to limit legal liability against the city.
Her supporters point to a drop in homelessness and homicides over the last four years as reason enough for Bass to return — but their hosannas haven’t gotten as much traction as an incumbent should be seeing at this point in a reelection campaign. That’s why the proverbial smart money had someone on the right side of L.A.’s Democratic spectrum mounting a strong challenge this year — Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez or Traci Park, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath or even 2022 challenger Rick Caruso.
While Mamdani’s fall win got local progressives dreaming about one day doing the same in Los Angeles, the prospect of a strong challenger from the left in this mayoral cycle was considered so unlikely that DSA-LA didn’t have candidate Rae Huang — a dues-paying member and Presbyterian minister — speak at the Immanuel gathering since she couldn’t gather enough signatures to make her case for an endorsement in the fall.
Raman has proved effective enough as a council member to win her reelection outright two years ago during the primaries despite a well-funded effort to paint her as a limousine leftist. I admire her brio to take on Bass and respect her place in L.A. political history. I’m glad someone is going to make the mayor work hard to get reelected because no incumbent should ever have an automatic reelection.
But Nithya Raman?
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, left, talks with Mayor Karen Bass at Hazeltine Park in Sherman Oaks during a 2024 rally for Raman’s ultimately successful reelection bid. She’s now challenging Bass in the 2026 mayoral election.
(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)
Presbyterians, such as those who pray at the Koreatown church, have historically believed in predestination, the idea that God has determined everyone’s fate and we can’t do a thing about it. Raman doesn’t belong to the denomination, but perhaps its tenets moved her at Immanuel into believing that another unlikely political revival is in her stars. Because that’s the only way to make sense of Raman’s turn and belief that she can pull off the victory.
Raman’s 4th District is one of the wealthier in the city, a mishmash of Encino rich, Silver Lake hipster and the San Fernando Valley lower middle class — relatively sheltered from the day-to-day struggles of many working class and working poor Angelenos living in L.A. While Soto-Martínez and Hernandez draw their perspective and base from the union and activist left, Raman’s loudest supporters have struck me as folks who might have the passion and money to win over her district but don’t have the street-level knowledge and experience to sell their candidate to all corners of the city.
Raman has walked the progressive walk during her two council terms by getting arrested at sit-ins, showing up to protests and through her City Hall work. But the coalition she needs to topple Bass seems exceedingly hard to build.
She’d have to run under the assumption that enough people on the left think the current mayor is a sellout — or at minimum, just not progressive enough. That conservative and centrist voters so loathe Bass that they’ll hold their nose and vote for a democratic socialist. She’d have to win over Latino voters, who went with Caruso four years ago but who represent only 19% of Raman’s district in a city that’s nearly majority Latino.
Raman would have to peel off labor from Bass, who has counted on and rewarded their support from Sacramento to Washington to City Hall for over two decades. Needs to paint Bass as soft on Trump’s deportation deluge despite her consistently calling him out. Appeal to homeowners who won’t like Raman’s ties to YIMBY-minded folks seeking to shove multistory units anywhere and everywhere. Convince Black voters — who already must reckon with the likely reality that the city will not have three Black council members for the first time since 1963 because the leading candidates to replace outgoing Curren Price are Latinos — that dethroning the city’s first Black female mayor is somehow good for the community’s political future.
And then there’s Raman’s fellow DSA members. The rank-and-file are currently furious at her for recently, unsuccessfully trying to tweak L.A.’s so-called mansion tax. Raman can’t run in the primary with DSA’s endorsement because that process ended last fall. Supporters can petition for a vote on the matter, but that opens her anew to critics who engineered a censure of her during her 2024 reelection campaign for accepting an endorsement by a pro-Israel group while the country was bombing Gaza.
Raman — who can keep her council seat if she doesn’t beat Bass — is about to find out that L.A. isn’t as progressive as people make it out to be.
Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman speaks to a crowd as she hosts an election night event in Edendale in March 2024 in Los Angeles.
(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times)
She might have visions of a populist movement a la what happened in New York ushering her into City Hall — but she’s no Mamdani and Bass is no Eric Adams. Even fans of Raman I talked to over the weekend are upset that the progressive march that DSA-LA has successfully launched in city and county politics this decade now must deal with a curveball from within. It threatens to distract from efforts for other campaigns in a year when the left needs to concentrate on defeating true opponents — not a fellow traveler like Bass.
Raman must figure this disruption is worth the risk for her legacy and will further strengthen L.A.’s left. Let’s see what voters decide.
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By McKinnon de Kuyper
February 12, 2026
Politics
Tim Walz demands federal government ‘pay for what they broke’ after Homan announces Minnesota drawdown
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Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is demanding that the federal government “pay for what they broke” after the Trump administration announced it would draw down its immigration enforcement presence in the Twin Cities.
During a press conference following Border Czar Tom Homan’s announcement that the administration would be ending its “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota, Walz said that federal law enforcement’s presence in the state was leaving “deep damage” and “generational trauma.”
“The federal government needs to pay for what they broke here,” said Walz. “There [is] going to be accountability on the things that happened, but one of the things is, the incredible and immense costs that were borne by the people of this state. The federal government needs to be responsible: You don’t get to break things, and then just leave without doing something about it.”
“So, we’re going to be asking the federal delegation to be investing and doing the things necessary,” he added.
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Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks to reporters after he announced that he would not seek reelection, at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. January 5, 2026. (Reuters/Tim Evans)
Walz, who is best known for being former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election, has been at odds with the administration throughout much of the operation, which was meant to crack down on rampant fraud and abuse in the state.
Regarding the federal drawdown, Walz said, “We are cautiously optimistic … that this surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave Minnesota, and I guess they’ll go wherever they’re going to go.”
“The fact of the matter is, they left us with deep damage, generational trauma, they left us with economic ruin in some cases, they left us with many unanswered questions: Where are our children? Where and what is the process of the investigations into those that were responsible for the deaths of Renee and Alex?” he continued.
“So, while the federal government may move on to whatever next thing that they want to do, the State of Minnesota and our administration is unwaveringly focused on the recovery of what they did.”
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Anti-ICE protesters gathered in Minnesota on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Homan announced Thursday that the administration will conclude Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. Homan told reporters during a news conference at the Bishop Whipple Federal in Minneapolis that the operation succeeded in reducing public safety threats with “unprecedented levels of coordination” from state officials and local law enforcement.
“As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said, adding, “I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude.”
Homan said “a significant drawdown” of immigration agents was already underway and will continue through next week.
The border czar announced last week that 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota, though 2,000 officers will remain. He cited improved cooperation with jails and said a complete drawdown was the goal, but it was “contingent upon the end of illegal and threatening activities against ICE.”
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White House ‘border czar’ Tom Homan speaks during a press conference at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on February 4, 2026. (CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
He said only a “small footprint of personnel” will remain for a period of time, while he will also remain on the ground to oversee the operation’s drawdown and success.
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“Additionally, federal government personnel assigned to conduct criminal investigations into the agitators, as well as the personnel assigned here for the fraud investigations, will remain in place until the work is done,” Homan said.
Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
Conversations about Culver City — the vibrant enclave on Los Angeles’ Westside often called “the Heart of Screenland” — usually include phrases such as “walkable” and “green spaces” and “Erewhon.”
So when U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi insinuated the city of 39,000 residents is a crime haven during a heated exchange with Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) Wednesday, local officials and personalities responded with statistics, memes and wry mockery.
Bondi slipped in the jab near the end of an arduous House hearing largely focused on the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Kamlager-Dove, whose district includes Culver City, hammered Bondi over deleted Department of Justice data linking far-right ideology with political killings, asserting that “there are violent, dangerous people out there with real threats.”
“There are — in your district,” Bondi responded. “Her district includes Culver City, and she’s not talking about any crime in her district. Nothing about helping crime in her district. She’s not even worth getting into the details.”
Hometown names stepped up to defend the burg by posting photos of clean streets, manicured parks and humming community events.
Political commentator and Angeleno Brian Taylor Cohen called the city “one of the most non-controversially safe” places in L.A., while Culver City-based comedian Heather Gardner said: “The worst crime of the century is that this woman had made a mockery of our justice system. Release the un-redacted files. Prosecute the REAL crimes.”
Kamlager-Dove shrugged off Bondi’s comment, saying Culver City was known for “breakfast burritos — not crime.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for Bondi to clarify her statements.
Crime in Culver City declined 9.7% in 2024 and was down an additional 6.1% in the third quarter of 2025 compared with the same period of 2024, according to the Culver City Police Department. Violent crime declined 3.9% in 2024 — the last full year of available data.
Over that period, murders dropped to zero while aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery also fell. There were 26 cases of sexual assault in the city in 2024, compared with 25 in 2023. The only violent crime that saw a significant increase were simple assaults, which rose 8.1%.
The California Department of Justice and the FBI reported in 2024 that crime in the state had fallen to “among the lowest levels ever recorded.”
Mayor Freddy Puza, in an interview Thursday, described Culver City as a “strong and vibrant community” of people with no shortage of job opportunities at small businesses and corporations alike, including TikTok, Pinterest and entertainment giants Apple, Amazon and Sony.
He said the local government has been able to lower crime rates through community-based policing and by providing housing and social services to its unsheltered population. The mayor characterized Bondi’s retort as a “knee-jerk reaction” from an attorney general faced with damaging public trust concerns at her department.
“My read of it is that she’s trying to deflect,” he said. “I think she could really spend her time prosecuting the people in the Epstein files and making sure that information from the federal government is transparent.”
The city had seen no ideological violence, he said, adding, “but the potential for it is right around the corner. There’s no doubt that it is on the rise and the president is stoking it. People are becoming further and further polarized.”
At the hearing, Bondi faced sharp criticism over the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation — specifically over redaction errors in the release millions of case files last month. In one instance, the attorney general refused to apologize to Epstein victims in the room, saying she would not “get into the gutter” with partisan requests from Democrats.
Her performance has already prompted a volley of bipartisan demands for her resignation, including from conservative pundits including Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes and Kyle Rittenhouse.
Culver City was not Bondi’s only target Wednesday. She called Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) a “washed-up loser lawyer,” accused Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome,” and branded former CNN anchor Don Lemon a “blogger.”
Since the hearing, however, she has stayed silent as locals continue to question her intel and chuckle over images of the pylon-protected war zone of Culver City.
“The worst crime in Culver City,” Gardener joked again on TikTok, “is that they charge $24 for a smoothie at Erewhon.”
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