A prominent voice on the Los Angeles left has picked a side in the race to lead the city, and it is not the incumbent's.
The endorsement
City Controller Kenneth Mejia endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman for mayor at a joint appearance, framing his support around the work of his own office: auditing how the city spends money and keeping its departments honest. Mejia said Raman would give the controller's office the staff and backing to dig into City Hall's finances, pointing to the sprawling utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, as the kind of agency he wants the resources to examine. "It's crumbling," he said of the city's infrastructure, adding, "we would love to audit LADWP."
Why it matters
The endorsement is notable less for the office involved than for the fault line it exposes on the city's political left. Mejia, elected controller as an outsider promising aggressive oversight, and Raman, one of the City Council's most progressive members, are natural allies. But Raman is running against Mayor Karen Bass, herself a Democrat with deep support among the city's establishment, and other progressive council members have lined up behind the incumbent. Mejia's move, in other words, splits a coalition that might otherwise be expected to hold together, and gives Raman's challenge a boost of credibility with left-leaning voters.
The race
Ms. Bass, who took office at the end of 2022, is seeking a second term, campaigning on public safety and the city's continued recovery from the devastating January 2025 wildfires. Ms. Raman is pitching herself as a reformer who would confront what she describes as a City Hall too cozy with powerful interests. The contest is shaping up as a debate over the city's direction: whether Angelenos want continuity under a mayor who has led through crisis, or a change agent promising a more combative approach to the city's finances and its entrenched problems.
The bigger picture
Behind the personalities is a genuine argument about how Los Angeles is run. Mejia has spent his term warning about the city's fiscal health and pressing for deeper audits; making the mayor's office an ally rather than an obstacle in that effort is, he argues, the point of backing Raman. Bass's supporters counter that steady, coalition-minded leadership is what a city recovering from disaster needs. Voters will settle it, but Thursday's endorsement made clear that the campaign will be fought, in part, over a question that rarely fires up an electorate yet touches everything the city does: who is watching the money.
