Los Angeles city council member Nithya Raman enters mayoral race | Los Angeles

Los Angeles city council member Nithya Raman formally entered the race for mayor on Saturday, unveiling her campaign during a press conference.

Representing areas that stretch from the San Fernando Valley to Silver Lake, Raman declared her candidacy just hours before the filing deadline. She now joins a field that includes former reality television personality Spencer Pratt, Housing Now California deputy director Rae Huang, veteran city engineer Asaad Alnajjar and the incumbent mayor, Karen Bass.

During her remarks, Raman said she is concerned that the city “is no longer a place of opportunity”.

“Los Angeles is at a breaking point, and people feel it in the most basic ways,” she said. “Housing costs are forcing families out of the city, a homelessness system that lacks clear ownership and accountability is leaving people stuck in crisis while the city cycles from emergency to emergency. Too many people don’t feel safe walking down their own blocks at night, even as crime comes down because broken street lights stay broken and the city can’t seem to manage the basics.”

She continued: “And while everyone agrees we need more housing, the city still struggles to lead with urgency, building too little too slowly while working families get priced out over and over again.”

Raman also argued that Los Angeles needs a mayor who will hold city departments accountable, plan ahead for emergencies, and push for increased housing supply and affordability. During her tenure on the city council, she has focused on rent stabilization and efforts to address homelessness.

Her entry into the race sets up what could be a strong challenge to Bass, who is running for a second four-year term. The incumbent has faced scrutiny recently over her handling of the historic wildfires that burned parts of LA early last year.

Raman has previously been a close ally of Bass and was the first council member elected with backing from the Democratic Socialists of America, which achieved a major win last fall with the election of New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

At the same time, she has established strong connections with leaders in the Yimby movement, which has advocated for expanding housing production through measures such as upzoning single-family neighborhoods and revising Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax applied to property sales of $5.3m or more.

Raman’s last-minute decision to run comes at the end of what has been one of the most volatile mayoral filing periods in Los Angeles in decades. Her announcement followed closely after LA county supervisor Lindsey Horvath opted not to enter the race, choosing instead to focus on her bid for a second term on the board of supervisors.

Horvath made her decision public a day before the deadline to file a declaration of intent for the 2 June primary, becoming the third potential contender in two days to rule out a challenge to Bass.

Earlier in the week, former Los Angeles unified school district superintendent Austin Beutner and billionaire developer Rick Caruso also announced that they would not be running.

The mayoral race comes as ongoing immigration raids by the Trump administration have agitated the city, making it an issue at the forefront of voters’ minds. Bass has described the raids as “an attack from our own federal government” and an affront to cities and people across the US.