Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman picked quite a moment to make her move. She announced her mayoral candidacy on Saturday, slipping in just hours before the city's filing deadline to challenge incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass ahead of the June 2 election.

Taking on City Hall

Raman represents District 4, which stretches from the San Fernando Valley down to Silver Lake. She's been on the council since 2020, bringing experience as an urban planner in India and leading a homelessness nonprofit in Los Angeles before that.

"Los Angeles needs a mayor who's going to take responsibility for the whole system," Raman told reporters on Saturday, making her pitch pretty clear from the start.

The field she's joining includes Spencer Pratt, Rae Huang (deputy director of Housing Now California), city engineer Asaad Alnajjar, and Mayor Bass herself, among others.

A Race in Flux

Bass' campaign advisor Douglas Herman wasn't thrilled about the new challenger. He fired back: "Mayor Bass will continue changing L.A. by building on her track record delivering L.A.'s first sustained decrease in street homelessness, a 60 year-low in homicides."

The race has been in flux all week. Former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner withdrew on Thursday following his daughter's death in December. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced Friday she won't run, and billionaire Rick Caruso, who came in second in 2022, said this week he's also sitting it out.