India-born Nithya Raman wins Los Angeles mayoral race

• Indian-born democratic socialist Nithya Raman has been elected Mayor of Los Angeles.

• She becomes the first South Asian mayor of New York.

• Raman, 45, defeated incumbent Karen Bass in the November 3 midterm elections in the United States.

• She is the first Los Angeles mayoral candidate to defeat an incumbent since 2005.

• With this victory, America’s two largest cities — New York and Los Angeles — are now run by Indian-descent mayors.

• Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York on January 1, 2026.

• Nithya Raman was born in Thrissur, Keralam, to a Tamil family that emigrated to the United States when she was about six.

• An urban planner by training, Raman earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a graduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

• She first won a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 2020.

• She is among several Indian-American candidates who won in the 2026 US midterm elections, in which the Democrats made significant gains and secured control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.