Will DSA Marxists Conquer Los Angeles – or May Freedom Prevail?
by Trevor London, Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance
Buoyed by successful city council races in Atlanta, Austin, Louisville, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC, Portland (Oregon and Maine) and especially New York City, the country’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), is now setting its sights on Los Angeles.
Now over 100,000 strong nationally and with more than 5,000 comrades in the Los Angeles area, DSA is committed to political domination of the City of Angels as a key springboard to run a “democratic socialist” for the US presidency in 2028.[i]
Endorsed by Bernie Sanders and a whole array of unions and “progressive” groups DSA is running its largest ever slate.
Running on a “Shake Up City Hall” ticket, DSA is backing three incumbents:
- Eunisses Hernandez for Los Angeles City Council District 1,
- Hugo Soto-Martinez for Los Angeles City Council District 13,
- Rocio Rivas for LA United School District Board District 2.
DSA is also running newcomers:
- Estuardo Mazariegos for Los Angeles City Council District 9,
- Faizah Malik for Los Angeles City Council District 11,
- Marissa Roy for Los Angeles City Attorney.
The last listed race is particularly important. Most Angelenos don’t see the City Attorney role as of great political importance, but DSA certainly does.
According to Los Angeles comrade and former DSA national communications director Chris Kutalik:
“The city attorney is one of the most powerful and least understood offices in LA, and the current city attorney is using the office to obstruct the pro-tenant, pro-worker agenda our DSA electeds are trying to implement in city council,’ said Sydney Ghazarian, cochair of DSA’s Marissa Roy Working Group and a former DSA National Political Committee leader. ‘We’ve learned the hard way that the policies we pass don’t matter if the city attorney refuses to enforce them…’
‘Right now, we have a city attorney who wastes the office’s resources defending indefensible LAPD misconduct instead of prosecuting slumlords, bad bosses, and polluting corporations,’ added Ghazarian. ‘Marissa will use the power of the office to defend tenants, workers, and millions of working-class Angelenos, not just the powerful few.[ii]
Significantly, Los Angeles comrades declined to officially endorse incumbent city councilor and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who is also a long-standing DSA member.
DSA endorsed Raman in her first City Council race. However, she failed to get the organization’s endorsement this time around, because some local comrades wanted to support another” democratic socialist”, housing activist Rae Huang, who is also running a doomed to fail campaign for the mayoralty.
Nithya Raman has also upset many DSAers by being too soft on Israel and was actually censured by the comrades in 2024 for accepting the endorsement of Democrats for Israel–Los Angeles.[iii]
So, unlike Zohran Mamdani in New York, Raman will not have the enthusiastic backing of thousands of local and national DSA comrades, affiliated unions, leftist churches and “progressive” organizations.[iv]
This may create the opportunity for pro-freedom candidate Spencer Pratt to defeat both Nithya Raman and Karen Bass.
While the original DSA, founded in 1982, could lay some claim to being pro-Israel, and genuinely “democratic socialist”, today’s organization is militantly anti-Israel and is effectively America’s largest communist organization.
To quote Los Angeles DSA’s Palestine Solidarity Committee:
DSA, both nationally and locally, is committed to organizing for Palestinian liberation and has participated in ongoing mass organizing, actions, lobbying, and political education.
As socialists, we understand the forces of capitalism and imperialism have an interest in maintaining the violence of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and nation.
Ending genocide and supporting Palestine’s liberation is a key international issue of our time…
As socialists, we also understand that our struggles are deeply interconnected- what happens to one happens to all. As we see more repression of pro Palestine protests, as activists and protestors get arrested, detained and possibly deported, as people lose jobs, it is important that we stand with workers, students and activists in solidarity.[v]
DSA works closely with CAIR and other Hamas fronts. It also overlaps membership with pro-China groups such as Communist Party USA, Liberation Road and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization – all of whom were active leaders of the George Floyd riots of 2020 and the anti-ICE protests of recent months.
Los Angeles has moved far to the left since the 1990s. This is mainly because of the influence a previous wave of socialists, lead by (among others) former state senator Gil Cedillo, former mayor Antonio Villargarosa, union leaders Maria Elena Durazo and Miguel Contreras, “philanthropist” Stanley Sheinbaum and incumbent mayor Karen Bass – who was an active Maoist in her youth, a Communist Party affiliate and a regular visitor to Fidel Castro’s Cuba.[vi]
A weak DSA candidate and a severely damaged Karen Bass may create enough space for Spencer Pratt to win the Mayoralty.
If Pratt wins, DSA and every other faction of the Los Angeles far left will not give him one moment of peace. But Pratt seems to take the DSA threat way more seriously than past pro-freedom candidates, which will be a great advantage.
This may well be the last chance to decisively defeat the Los Angeles far-left, before it turns the city into Detroit’s westernmost suburb.
[i] Kutalik, Chris, Jacobin, 4.19.2026, “LA Socialists’ Debates Reflect the Left’s Growing Strength”, Link: https://jacobin.com/2026/04/los-angeles-democratic-socialism-municipal-politics
[iii] Kutalik, Chris, Jacobin, 4.19.2026, “LA Socialists’ Debates Reflect the Left’s Growing Strength”, Link: https://jacobin.com/2026/04/los-angeles-democratic-socialism-municipal-politics
[iv] Olivier, Indigo, Jacobin, “The System That We Have to Respond to Homelessness Is Not One That Was Designed to Help People” Link: https://jacobin.com/2020/02/nithya-raman-los-angeles-city-council-candidate
[v] Los Angeles DSA website, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Link: https://dsa-la.org/palestinesolcmte/
[vi] KeyWiki, Karen Bass file, Link: https://keywiki.org/Karen_Bass
___________________
Trevor Loudon is an expert on Communism and a Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance
