The Los Angeles mayoral contest between incumbent Karen Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman has become more than a fight over City Hall. Raman’s membership in the Democratic Socialists of America has turned the race into another test of socialism’s reach in urban politics.

Yet the more revealing story concerns the widening split inside DSA. Major local chapters have embraced electoral organizing and broad coalitions, while the national leadership and other locals have placed greater emphasis on ideological conformity.

That conflict has drawn attention from national newspapers, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Catalyst, the theoretical journal established by Jacobin. The interest suggests the dispute now extends beyond the usual arguments among left organizations.

DSA’s National Political Committee has insisted that elected members adhere closely to national positions. It declined to endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for reelection in 2024 even though she led a congressional effort to stop offensive weapons sales to Israel, because she supported supplying Israel with Iron Dome defenses.

New York’s DSA local took a different approach. It backed Ocasio-Cortez and played an extensive role in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign while acknowledging that elected politicians answer to broader constituencies, not solely to DSA members.

Los Angeles members voted this summer to endorse Raman, who joined DSA before her first City Council campaign in 2020. Raman has said she joined after being impressed by the local’s tenant organizing while she worked as a city planner and tenants’ rights activist.

The local helped elect her as the first socialist on the City Council, which has 15 members. Three additional DSA members later won council seats, and the local endorsed Raman again for council reelection in 2024 while censuring her for accepting support from the Los Angeles chapter of Democrats for Israel.

The local has organized calls and precinct walks for Raman’s mayoral campaign. Its operation remains smaller than New York DSA’s effort for Mamdani, however, because the Los Angeles chapter has fewer members and entered the mayoral campaign later.

Earlier this month, the National Political Committee ruled that the endorsement violated a national requirement that endorsed candidates support boycott, divestment, and sanctions toward Israel. The local had not asked Raman about that policy, while the national body also found her insufficiently supportive of Palestinians despite her description of Israel’s war in Gaza as a “genocide.”

The committee could rescind the endorsement or expel Raman. Longtime observers view the confrontation as a broader challenge to large locals that spend resources electing politicians who may occasionally depart from parts of the national platform.

The author, a longtime democratic socialist who helped lead the Los Angeles local of DSOC and later DSA during the late 1970s and 1980s, delivers a blistering assessment of the national faction. He argues its demand for strict obedience is incompatible with democratic politics and could drive thousands of frustrated members away.

But that does not translate into an endorsement of Raman’s socialist credentials. Her council record sits to the right of her three DSA colleagues, all of whom opposed Bass’s 2024 nominee for Los Angeles Police Department chief while Raman voted to confirm him.

Raman also joined a council majority approving a $30 municipal minimum wage by 2028. She initially opposed an 18 month delay sought by businesses, then switched sides one week later and voted for the postponement.

Her answer to the Los Angeles Times about admired former city officials further displayed her political flexibility. She praised qualities associated with Tom LaBonge and every mayor from Tom Bradley through Eric Garcetti, producing a sweeping tribute with little indication of firm political direction.

Raman’s three DSA colleagues on the council endorsed Bass, partly because they regarded Raman as an unreliable vote and presence during deliberations. Raman has also declined to endorse the billionaires’ wealth tax on the November ballot, while Bass followed Gov. Gavin Newsom in opposing it.

Bass has her own socialist background, including youthful service with a Venceremos Brigade and decades of community organizing in South Central Los Angeles. Polling indicates Raman is likely to win, but the author expects her administration would look more like a continuation of Bass than a socialist break from it.