‘We knocked on 80,000 doors:’ how progressive Nithya Raman won Los Angeles

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A Los Angeles urban planner who made homelessness and housing the central issues of her campaign and condemned the Los Angeles police department for “responding to protests against police brutality with more police brutality”, won a crucial local race this November.

Nithya Raman, 39, joins the list of Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressives who have beaten Democratic party incumbents in closely-watched races. Her opponent, David Ryu, had been endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

‘People got involved’: how Los Angeles progressives swept the election

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Raman’s Los Angeles city council victory won’t change the balance of power among Democrats in Washington. But her win does show the impact progressives can have by organizing at the local level, and the intensity of enthusiasm she prompted among Angelenos has earned her comparisons to the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Raman’s campaign was powered by local advocacy groups, including the Sunrise Movement and Democratic Socialists of America, and she has endorsed a swathe of bold progressive policies, from backing a Green New Deal, to arguing that some of the Los Angeles police department’s budget should be diverted to pay for unarmed community crisis specialists and outreach workers. She is pushing for a rent forgiveness program in response to the coronavirus crisis, and opposes all policies that criminalize people who are unhoused.

Raman spoke to the Guardian the week after her victory. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How significant were the George Floyd protests to the progressive victories in LA this year, including voters choosing a new, more progressive local prosecutor and supporting a measure to devote more taxpayer dollars to community prevention services, rather than incarceration?

After the protests began happening, people began making connections between what they were protesting in the streets and the decisions made by our county supervisors, our city council. They were finding out the name of their city council person. They were learning about what we spend on sheriffs and policing. Many groups in Los Angeles, like Black Lives Matter LA and the Youth Justice Coalition, had been doing the work around these issues for a long time. This election in Los Angeles was a result of that existing work on the ground, plus this widespread engagement.

We built our campaign around voter engagement. Even before the protests, we had over 600 volunteers come out. We knocked on 80,000 doors, which as far as we know, is a record. By the general election, we had 2,000 volunteers over all. We had 1,000 people just in our Slack.

You had 1,000 people in one Slack channel?

It’s a very respectful Slack.

Your win was one of several progressive victories in Los Angeles this November. Do you think there was a clear message that voters here were sending to city officials?

If you step back, what I see is that we have a city and a county where many of the residents have very progressive values, but for many years there’s been a real gap between what I saw around me as a progressive and the policymaking that came out of the city.

What you had in this election was the opportunity to show the strength of progressive ideas here in Los Angeles

Many people had not voted in municipal elections before, and the people who did participate were, on the whole, wealthier and less diverse than the population. This time, with the election overlapping with the federal election [a change from previous years, designed to encourage more people to vote in local elections], we had the opportunity for a larger voter turnout. The last election in my district, just 24,000 people voted. This general election, four times that number have voted already, with the votes still being counted.

This is a city that Bernie Sanders won and that Elizabeth Warren won. What you had in this election was the opportunity to show the strength of progressive ideas here in Los Angeles, not just around criminal justice, but around a whole range of issues. I think it’s a mobilization that signals possibly bigger changes for Los Angeles going forward.

What lessons do you think other progressive candidates nationwide might be able to learn from your campaign?

We really respected voters. We talked to as many voters as possible and didn’t really distinguish people who were likely to vote and people who weren’t. I would encourage every progressive candidate that is eyeing a run to start early and to get out to as many voters as possible.

During the campaign, some people referred to you the AOC – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – of Los Angeles politics. What do you think of that comparison?

Um, I’m flattered! She’s such a wonderful and eloquent voice. The proudest moments in my campaign were when young women of color would come up to me and say that they were excited that they saw themselves in me. I’m just really glad that there are more of us, you know? And that my daughter, who is five years old, will hopefully never have to wonder whether our political spaces are a space for her, because I’m there, and [AOC] is there.

As someone who took a very long time to step up and say I wanted to run for office, I’m hoping that the young women who are watching and seeing this don’t wait that long.