Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman grabbed a microphone at a Halloween nightclub party to deliver a stump speech about immigration enforcement and housing costs — a glimpse of the temperament from the woman who wants to run America's second-largest city.
Raman, dressed as a deceased mountain lion named P-22, took the stage at the Echoplex in Echo Park alongside City Controller Kenneth Mejia to tell partygoers why she should be mayor. "The rent is too damn high. ICE is on our streets. And we have a mayor who is missing in action," Raman declared, according to a clip originally posted by user @rayger and reported by the New York Post. She also told the crowd: "You have a chance to change the city, use it."
Raman didn't stop at one venue. She hit at least three Halloween stops — the Echoplex, Bar Flores in Echo Park, and a house party hosted by fashion brand Eckhaus Latta — introducing herself as a mayoral candidate at each. At Bar Flores, she kept it brief: "I'm here to say one thing and then I'll let you keep dancing — young voters are going to decide this election." Her communications director, Stella Stahl, shared a glimpse of the Echoplex appearance on social media, writing: "If you told me I would be at the Echoplex on Halloween with my boss who's running for Mayor…"
The New York Post framed the evening as Raman "urging young Angelenos to vote" and noted her "energetic" dancing. What the Post buried: the spectacle of an elected official crashing Halloween parties to complain that federal immigration officers are doing their jobs on city streets — in a city where residents can barely afford rent and homelessness has become a crisis.
Raman is running against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, and the race is now deadlocked at 40% each, according to a Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll. Raman held an 11-point lead in September before Bass gained ground with voters who backed Spencer Pratt in the June primary.
Meanwhile, Bass spent the week before the election signing an ordinance banning all new oil and gas drilling in Los Angeles and phasing out existing wells over 20 years — then framing the move as a victory against racism. The Gateway Pundit reported that Bass called the legislation a step toward "environmental justice in frontline neighborhoods." In a city where gas prices already punish working people, the incumbent mayor's solution is to restrict domestic energy production and call it equity.
So that's the choice for Los Angeles: a mayor who bans drilling and blames racism for energy policy, or a challenger who seizes microphones at Halloween parties to complain that immigration law exists. Both candidates have pledged to reduce homelessness by the 2028 Olympics. Neither has explained why the city they've been running has let the problem metastasize in the first place.
The question for voters is whether either of these Democrats is serious about governing — or just serious about performing.
