How does NYC primary win reverberate in Los Angeles politics?

Los Angeles Times

20 hours ago

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Zohran Mamdani's resounding victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary has turned the heads of progressive elected officials in Los Angeles.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez called it the 'biggest victory for a socialist candidate probably in America.'
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said Angelenos should take note.
'What it shows is that we can win. We can win in major cities,' she said.
Councilmember Ysabel Jurado was bursting with excitement about the results from a city 3,000 miles away.
'Having a DSA-backed mayor is freaking amazing,' she said about the prospect of Mamdani, who was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, winning the general election in November.
While Mamdani's primary upset over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo injected new excitement into the left flank of the Los Angeles political scene — one DSA member called it a 'we're so back moment' — it also highlighted vastly different political terrains in the two coastal cities, starting with executive leadership.
Mamdani is a 33-year-old democratic socialist who was elected to the New York state assembly in 2020. He ran in the Democratic mayoral primary on a far-left agenda, promising to freeze the rent in rent-stabilized apartments and to make city buses free.
New York's current mayor, Eric Adams, ran as a Democrat in 2021 but will be an independent candidate in the general election, after Trump's Department of Justice dropped bribery charges against him. In line with his offer to assist in enforcing federal immigration laws if the charges were dropped, Adams has since attempted to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into the city jails (a judge blocked that plan after the City Council sued).
Southern California, on the other hand, has emerged as the epicenter of the president's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, and Mayor Karen Bass has been an outspoken critic of the president's immigration agenda.
Trump's ramping up of immigration enforcement and subsequent deployment of the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles has prompted the city's progressive and moderate Democratic politicians to band together and set aside their differences.
Councilmembers on the left flank cited the different political realities in the two cities when speaking about the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election, with the field of candidates still taking shape.
'We don't have a candidate on the left … as a progressive. We have Mayor Karen Bass, who is running again,' Hernandez said. 'She's moving how she needs to move and has been doing a good job at least in handling this crisis that we're in right now.'
Hernandez said she is focused on winning her own reelection bid in a crowded field.
Soto-Martínez said the city is 'under siege' by the federal government.
'We are trying to show unity against the federal takeover of our city, and so that's how I feel about it right now, and that might change a year from now, but that's how I feel,' he said. 'I support the mayor and her reelect, and I think her roots from community organizing is something we need right now.'
No progressive candidate has emerged to run against Bass. Before the immigration raids, Bass' performance in the wake of January's devastating wildfires led to speculation that she would be challenged from the right again by businessman Rick Caruso, whom she beat handily in 2022. Caruso is also weighing a bid for governor.
Lefty Angelenos shouldn't hold their breath for a DSA candidate. While the process is member-driven, DSA-LA does not plan at the moment to run anyone for mayor, said Marc Krause, a co-chair of DSA-LA.
Krause said the group's focus is legislative change, starting with representation on the City Council.
'I think for DSA-LA, our big goal and recent strategy is to try to win a majority on the L.A. City Council,' he said.
DSA-LA's Mamdani moment came when Hernandez and Soto-Martínez won in 2022, joining Nithya Raman, who had DSA support in her 2020 election.
'It proved to us that what we were aiming to do had some viability to it,' Krause said.
Jurado, also backed by DSA-LA, joined the bloc in 2024.
Those four have helped push the council further to the left in recent years, from passing a $30 minimum wage for tourism industry workers to voting for a budget that sought to slow down police hiring — though those hires may return.
Krause cited a stronger rent stabilization ordinance, higher pay for workers in the city and improved transit infrastructure as some of DSA-LA's top legislative goals.
To secure those wins, Krause hopes to elect eight DSA-backed city councilmembers or to build a coalition with other elected officials who agree with the policies DSA-LA champions.
And Krause said the movement is growing. The night Mamdani won the primary, DSA-LA gained 50 new members — without even trying.
'We'll likely be doing more intentional recruitment,' Krause said.
— INNOCENT IMMIGRANTS: Most of the undocumented immigrants arrested between June 1 and June 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Los Angeles region had no criminal convictions, according to a Times analysis. The review of data from the Deportation Data Project, a repository of enforcement data at UC Berkeley Law, found that 69% of those arrested had no criminal convictions and 58% had never been charged with a crime.
— RECEIVERSHIP HAS SAILED: A federal judge decided not to put L.A.'s homelessness programs into receivership Tuesday, though he found that the city failed to adhere to the terms of a legal settlement focused on handling the humanitarian crisis on the streets.
— TRUMP SUIT: The city took steps to sue the Trump administration to stop immigration agents from making unconstitutional stops or arrests. The seven councilmembers who signed the letter asking City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to prioritize 'immediate legal action' against the administration argued that the litigation is necessary to prevent racial profiling and unlawful detention of Angelenos.
—UNION DOOZY: L.A. County's agreement with its biggest labor union will cost more than $2 billion over three years, according to the county chief executive office. The deal with SEIU 721, which represents 55,000 county workers, includes a $5,000 bonus in the first year. Union members still need to ratify the agreement.
—CALIFORNIA VS. TRUMP: The Trump administration may soon be forced to turn over documents related to the activities of the military in Southern California, a federal judge said Tuesday. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had previously allowed Trump to maintain control over the California National Guard.
—SCHOOLS BUDGET: The Los Angeles Board of Education approved an $18.8-billion budget that allows the district to avoid layoffs this year, in part by reducing proposed contributions to a trust fund for retiree health benefits.
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