Be The Savior of the Left: Raman Campaign Urged Huang to Drop Out

IN THE FRENZIED FINAL WEEKS before the Los Angeles mayoral primary, progressive star Nithya Raman’s supporters have become increasingly vocal about their frustrations with activist Rae Huang’s campaign, beseeching Huang to drop out in social media posts. 

But the overtures have also come from inside the campaign: A senior member of Raman’s campaign urged Huang to drop out last week and back Raman, Huang told L.A. Material. 

There are no party designations on the Los Angeles mayoral ballot. But the fate of Raman’s candidacy could depend on the city’s leftmost flank of voters, and whether they meaningfully coalesce around a single standard bearer. With Mayor Karen Bass leading in the polls, Raman and Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt have been battling for second place and a spot on the November general election ballot. Pratt has led slightly in most recent polling, but largely within the margin of error. Which could make Huang’s leftist candidacy — polling at about 4% — a potential spoiler for Raman. 

"You can be the savior of the left,” Huang said her staffer was told, summarizing the message. 

Huang, a Presbyterian minister who has lent her own campaign more than $85,000, told L.A. Material that the outreach from the Raman campaign official included an offer of financial guidance and “possibly a seat at the table.” 

But Huang said she refused. 

"I'm not somebody who can be bought. We are not a campaign that can be bought," Huang said.

Raman has not reached out to Huang directly, but last week’s proposal came amid ongoing discussions between the two campaigns’ staffers. A Raman campaign staffer said that a formal offer was never made to Huang’s campaign, just entreaties from staff.

In a statement, Raman’s campaign acknowledged that it has had conversations with Huang’s campaign “about how progressives must unite to prevent the possibility of a runoff between Mayor Bass’ failed status quo and a Trump-endorsed MAGA extremist, which would be a disaster for the working people the progressive movement exists to serve.”

“L.A. is a progressive city, and if progressive voters are united, Los Angeles could finally have a shot at advancing a citywide agenda that delivers for working people — lower rents, immigrant protections, real solutions to homelessness, a city that works for everyone who lives here,” the statement said.  

Raman has raised nearly a million dollars and qualified for more than $1.2 million in city matching funds since entering the race in February — a sum that dwarfs the hundreds of thousands that Huang has raised. Huang has also struggled to qualify for the city’s public financing program, which has cumbersome reporting requirements. The outreach from Raman’s camp appeared to include supplying their expertise to help Huang secure matching funds, which could help Huang’s campaign avoid debt.

Raman first upended city politics in 2020, when the political neophyte unseated a sitting council member with the backing of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. (It was the first time in nearly two decades that a council incumbent had been ousted.) Three other DSA-backed council members have been elected in the years since, as the group has continued to build organizing power in the region. 

Bass also identifies as a progressive, but hardly of the DSA variety: Her radical activist roots are long behind her, and she comfortably navigated the establishment wing of the party through her long tenure in Congress. (A moderate Democrat, entrepreneur Adam Miller, is also in the race and has largely polled in a similar position to Huang, though his support is unlikely to pull from the left.)

When Raman launched her surprise mayoral candidacy in February, the national media comparisons to New York’s insurgent socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani began before she’d even left the filing area. But with its abridged timetable, her campaign was unable to win the DSA’s official endorsement. 

Political watchers of all stripes posit that the array of Democratic candidates boosts Pratt’s chances of getting into the runoff. But polling has shown that Bass would likely cruise to victory against Pratt, whereas the mayor would face a far more competitive reelection fight against Raman in November. As such, Bass’ allies have played a complicated game of political chess, running “attack” ads that appear engineered to boost both Pratt and Huang. 

"It looks like Nithya and Pratt are going to be very close for second place," said longtime L.A. political strategist Parke Skelton, who briefly worked for Bass four years ago. "If there's 5,000 votes that Nithya can get by getting Huang to drop out, it could be determinative."

Huang said she rejects the notion that she is a spoiler in the race who is not “viable,” and she countered that many of her voters will simply stay home if she drops out.

“If we keep telling people to vote based on what’s viable, we won’t change our system,” said Huang. 

The candidate, who tacks significantly to the left of Raman on a number of issues, asserted that people who voted for President Trump are backing her, as are voters who were considering Pratt before realizing there was “an alternative option.”

Huang said she may have taken the request by Raman’s campaign to drop out differently if it had not come roughly two weeks before Election Day, or if Raman herself had reached out to her before getting into the race. 

Huang’s campaign spokesperson, Emel Shaikh, was similarly blunt: “Part of the tactic around, ‘A vote for Rae is throwing your vote away,’ or calling on us to drop out and back Nithya,” Shaikh said, was that it spoke down to voters and didn’t respect their intelligence. 

“A lot of people are fed up at being told they don’t know what’s right for them,” Shaikh said.

The conflict between Raman and Huang, two progressive politicians who both vied for DSA’s backing, is just one aspect of a mayoral season that has strained, and at times shattered, alliances. 

Raman’s entrance in the race was another. She jumped in just hours before the filing deadline — and after she had already endorsed Bass’ re-election. 

Though Bass and Raman are broadly aligned politically, the council member said she had grown increasingly frustrated with the mayor’s leadership and the high costs of the mayor’s signature homelessness program. She also opposed a number of other consequential decisions that Bass had made, which Raman thought were fiscally irresponsible at a time when basic city services had deteriorated.     

L.A. County Federation of Labor — a mega-coalition of 300 labor unions — has effectively declared war on Raman for her betraying Bass and a recent ad by the group elevates Pratt by attacking him in terms his potential supporters might find appealing. The local police union, which also supports Bass, has run similarly warm attack ads targeting Huang, which play up her socialist bona fides and support for unarmed crisis response and a Green New Deal. 

Meanwhile, the three other members of the DSA on the City Council — Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martínez, and Ysabel Jurado — have all backed Bass, not Huang or Raman. 

DSA’s L.A. chapter ultimately opted not to formally endorse a candidate, but recommended Raman in its voter guide. DSA’s Long Beach chapter, meanwhile, recommended Huang. 

Sean Wakasa, co-chair of DSA’s L.A. chapter, called it “a strength of the movement that there are DSA members running for mayor, even if they are competing against each other.” 

“Not everybody on the left agrees 100% all the time,” Wakasa said, “but there are often conflicting and competing opinions and ideologies, as well as practical differences in what steps do we think we should take to improve Los Angeles for working Angelenos.” 

At the same time, Wakasa said, council members who backed Bass also appeared to be preserving a working relationship with the mayor. 

“No one really knows what’s going to happen in this election,” Wakasa said. “We’re not going to have a socialist city tomorrow. Being pragmatic about building power for working Angelenos is definitely important.”