Why DSA-LA Should Not Endorse for mayor

This weekend, DSA-LA will consider reopening our mayoral endorsement process for the 2026 primary, to choose between two proposed endorsees: Rae Huang and Nithya Raman. The Groundwork caucus does not believe either proposed candidate has earned the DSA-LA endorsement. 

We do understand the desire to endorse a mayoral candidate, especially considering the impressive win in NYC through Zohran Mamdani’s campaign. While the mayor’s office has fairly limited real power compared to the council, it is by far the most prominent race in the eyes of working class Angelenos, and provides a great pulpit to mobilize people and spread our politics. However, we do not have a Zohran running for mayor in Los Angeles. A DSA mayoral candidate would need to be a true champion for democratic socialism and our movement and have a demonstrated history of working closely with our chapter. Rather than endorse now, our chapter must succeed in expanding the current DSA bloc on Los Angeles City Council to 6 members this year, electing our first DSA-LA City Attorney, and continue building future candidates who are truly grounded in our organization and movement.  We believe that endorsing a candidate who cannot meet the challenge would be a worse outcome than simply not issuing an endorsement. Rather than elect a mayoral candidate now who is unaccountable to the chapter and does not advance our program or strengthen our class, we must build a chapter prepared to run a mayoral candidate grounded in our socialist politics and win a majority on the City Council in 2030.

Groundwork recently released a comprehensive electoral strategy for DSA that provides a clear rubric for why and how DSA should approach electoral work. Very simply, we believe that the working class is the historical agent of change, that the working class in the United States lacks organization, that DSA should be that democratic organization for working class politics, and that we should engage in electoral work to advance working class alignment by building a working class political identity in opposition to the capitalist class and to build our organization by electing candidates who are from DSA and follow our democratic decisions. Neither of these candidates fit the bill.

Considerations on Candidate Nithya Raman

Nithya Raman is a chapter Socialist in Office (SIO). Her first election helped build the chapter as a serious electoral force, and she has a potentially viable chance at winning the mayoral election. However, Nithya is not a DSA candidate, first and foremost, and she is not running a class struggle campaign for mayor that would align the working class in Los Angeles. Nithya has always struggled to be accountable to or collaborative with the organization or advance our program in the best of times. She has never publicly called herself a democratic socialist. She let her dues lapse for over a year. She accepted and publicly boosted an endorsement from Democrats for Israel, a very serious breach of our principles, and was censured by the chapter for it. Just this year, she pushed to defang Measure ULA, a chapter priority. Nithya has shown no commitment to supporting the chapter’s program or to abiding by our democratically decided positions and red lines.

As mayor, she will be outside of our organization, at best, a potentially sympathetic target for lobbying by the chapter, not a Socialist in Office in any meaningful sense. She views herself as an independent voice, rather than a representative of the movement in office. If elected, the chapter will need to be prepared to organize her in office and, based on her track record, to lose most of those attempts to win her to our position. A Raman mayoralty with a DSA-LA endorsement could be an anvil around the chapter, someone who represents the chapter publicly and in the eyes of workers while actively working against much of our program.

But still, a case could be made to endorse Nithya on class struggle grounds, as in 2020 and 2024. In those elections, Nithya and the coalition behind her, including DSA-LA, were able to win the multiracial working class and politicize at scale, polarize between workers and the establishment, and build the organizational heft and electoral muscle for the long haul.

That is not the case with this mayoral run. Nithya is resolutely not running a campaign focused on working class issues or trying to build a class-based coalition in this campaign. Her campaign is focused on “progressive abundance,” its message tailored for the managerial class. There is no evidence she is reaching or attempting to reach a working class base, rather, she has reverted to the classic progressive rhetoric of technocracy and good governance. She is not supported by the labor movement and has been slow over her time in city council to shore up relationships and understanding with labor. Her campaign fractures the left-labor coalition the chapter has worked for many years to build and strains our hard-won relationships with rank-and-file and leaders in unions representing the broad multiracial working class of Los Angeles. She cannot lead our slate as the top of a ticket: most of our slate and the left-labor coalition behind them are at best skeptical of her run, and she has actively refused to run this race in a collaborative, slate-focused manner. Put simply: Nithya’s run for mayor does not advance class struggle. 

The way she got in the race, without telling any of her movement allies (especially DSA-LA) or even asking our advice, is emblematic because it shows she will go it alone; she doesn't view herself as accountable to organizations or movements, or even to her colleagues as SIOs. This has been true in the past, but it shows that it will be even more true in the future. It is quite possible, even likely, that the chapter recommends voting for Nithya in our voter guide in June or November, and our chapter members cast their votes for her as the preferable option. Our endorsement, however, means more. It means a commitment to putting in the work to elect someone, a socialist, who is committed to advancing our program and making socialism in our lifetimes a reality. Nithya is not that candidate, and we strongly urge chapter members to vote no on endorsing Nithya when her endorsement comes up.

Considerations on Candidate Rae Huang

Rae Huang is a new candidate who joined DSA after her mayoral run began, in part with the goal of seeking our endorsement. There is much to like about Rae’s platform, and the enthusiasm her run has generated among many members of our chapter. However, there are a few important reasons the chapter should not endorse Rae. She is not a DSA candidate and has never meaningfully engaged with the organization prior to announcing her candidacy. Thus, we have no evidence that she could be accountable to the organization. She might; she might not, but there is no track record to draw from to evaluate. Consequently, she is running as an individual, rather than a DSA candidate. This is very important: elections are not contests of individuals or even policy platforms, but of organized blocs fighting for power. While the capitalist class is organized, the working class is disorganized. Without the money to fight back, the only weapon workers have is organization. That’s why DSA needs to be a mass, democratic, and disciplined organization that creates our own program and selects our own candidates. It’s not just a moral preference; it is the only way our class can win.

Rae’s campaign also appears far away from viability, even less so now with Nithya in the race. A recent poll found Rae at only 2.9%, with Nithya at 9.3% after only weeks in the race. Her campaign has not mobilized large numbers of workers. Her current campaign strategy seems heavily weighted toward online engagement among demographics who already vote for socialist or progressive candidates. We have not seen an orientation from her campaign toward aligning the labor movement with a socialist pole. Even in the best case, her campaign seems confined to potentially winning over the already-activist left. We should be clearheaded that the odds of Rae emerging through the primary are incredibly low.

When considering a campaign that is not from or accountable to our organization, or a campaign that is very unlikely to win, our criteria for endorsement should be: does it spread our message at a mass scale, and does it unite large numbers of workers against capital? Rae’s campaign seems deeply unlikely to do this, especially given a potential endorsement just weeks before voting begins, with our member capacity already stretched to its breaking point. 

Our caucus strongly supports a serious analysis and discussion of the mayoral race among members. This is a hugely important choice that will sharpen our politics and understanding of our terrain. Fundamentally, however, neither of these candidates should be endorsed by the chapter. DSA doesn’t exist to endorse the better candidate in any given race: we exist to win socialism in our lifetimes. A rushed endorsement process right before an election involving two prospects, both of whom have significant support within the chapter, does not build our power as an organization or as a class. Indeed, our electoral endorsements should have a broad consensus in the chapter: when we endorse, we should all be committed to voting for, donating to, and actively campaigning for a candidate. With two candidates who divide our membership, we have no realistic hope of that. We have no consensus and therefore no endorsement. Neither of these candidates fits our vision for DSA, and we urge members to engage with this process and to reject endorsing either candidate.