With so many voters still undecided and Bass facing mounting criticism over homelessness, public safety, and the city’s wildfire response, the debate carried outsize significance. Raman needed to convince centrist and antiestablishment voters that she represented a tougher, more pragmatic alternative to the mayor while still appealing to liberals dissatisfied with Bass’s leadership.

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Instead, she repeatedly stumbled through answers that seemed tailor-made for sharper responses. At several points, she appeared flustered, blowing past time limits and turning straightforward questions into long explanations. One especially awkward exchange came when she was asked whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in city elections, a question that called for a yes-or-no answer but elicited an extended, unfocused reply.

Her most uncomfortable moment came when she suggested Bass and Pratt were teaming up to push her out of the primary. The accusation prompted laughter from the audience rather than sympathy and a stinging rebuke from Pratt, one of many throughout the night.

“First off, Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together,” he said. “I blame this person [Bass] for burning my house and my parents’ house and my town and my neighbors down. I am not working with Mayor Bass.

“Second off, if I wanna run against anybody, it would be the council member who is terrible. Mayor Bass has at least been a mayor for almost four years and has, as she talked about earlier, the unions, all the unions endorse Mayor Bass. Do you think it’s easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions or a random city council member who’s been a failure for 6 years? I would much rather run against Councilwoman Raman.”

Under California’s “jungle primary” system, all candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation, with the top two finishers advancing to the general election. In a race where no candidate appears close to consolidating support, Raman had an opportunity to present herself as the clear alternative to Bass. Instead, she often came across as defensive and visibly irritated.

“It wasn’t a great performance, but there’s still some time left before the primary,” California-based political analyst Robert Calvins told the Washington Examiner. “Not much, but a little.”

Raman’s political rise in Los Angeles has been unusually rapid. Born in India and raised in the United States, Raman studied urban planning, earning a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a graduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Before entering politics, she founded SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on outreach to the homeless. In 2020, she became the first South Asian woman elected to the Los Angeles City Council after mounting a grassroots campaign powered by 2,000 volunteers who knocked on more than 80,000 doors to unseat a sitting councilmember, something that had not happened in nearly two decades. She was also part of the first major wave of progressive candidates elected to the council, backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Representing the tony Hollywood Hills district, Raman has championed tenant protections and housing initiatives, including efforts to limit evictions, cap rent increases on older apartments, establish a right-to-counsel program for tenants, and expand anti-displacement measures. She has also pushed for increased housing construction and policies to revive the entertainment industry.

In one exchange during the debate, Pratt made sure to tie Raman to drug use among the homeless population.

“I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her, and we can find some of those people she’s going to offer treatment for … she’s going to get stabbed in the neck. These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or supermeth,” Pratt charged.

Her husband, Vali Chandrasekaran, is a television writer and producer known for his work on Modern Family and 30 Rock.

Pratt hit close to home when he accused Raman and Bass of “failing Hollywood” by not securing enough uncapped or postproduction tax credits and other protections.

“Councilman Raman will tell you, ‘My husband’s a producer. Blah, blah, blah,'” Pratt said. “The reality is, she’s been in power for five years now. All of a sudden, she has these tweets and these posts. She’s doing sub stacks. Both of these people have been the reason why there’s no more Hollywood.”

Bass also sought to draw a sharp contrast with Raman over policing and public safety funding.

Soon after taking office, Bass pushed to rebuild the Los Angeles Police Department to 9,500 officers, but staffing instead dropped to fewer than 8,700 sworn personnel. Her administration approved a costly package of salary hikes aimed at keeping officers from leaving.

Raman argued the city should maintain the department at its current staffing levels and criticized the raises as financially irresponsible.

Bass countered that the pay increases were necessary to stem the loss of officers and accused Raman of standing in the way of recruitment efforts.

“I have not had the cooperation from the City Council, including, unfortunately, my colleague next to me, who has voted repeatedly against hiring officers,” Bass said. “We cannot shrink our department.”

Bass and Raman were considered political allies for years, often appearing on the same side of major city fights. Bass publicly supported Raman during her bruising 2024 council reelection race, and Raman had backed Bass in her showdown with billionaire developer Rick Caruso two years earlier. That relationship unraveled after Raman entered the mayor’s contest in February.

Raman has described her decision to run for mayor as both “unexpected” and “necessary.”

“Over the past few years, I’ve had a growing sense that our city is falling behind,” she said. “That feeling sharpened after last January’s fires, the city’s slow response, and the lack of accountability at City Hall.”

She has argued that Los Angeles’s problems extend well beyond wildfire recovery.

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Raman, who had chaired the council’s housing and homelessness committee since, supported Bass’s emergency declaration on homelessness and approved three years of funding for the mayor’s Inside Safe initiative. 

“Housing costs keep rising while housing production — the only real way to reduce costs — has stalled,” she said. “Unsheltered homelessness has declined in some areas, but not in proportion to the enormous public spending. Systems remain inefficient and unaccountable, eroding public trust.”

She has also pointed to lingering public safety concerns, arguing that even as violent crime declines, slow 911 response times have left many residents feeling unsafe.