Inside Nithya Raman's improbable campaign for L.A. mayor

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Set us as preferred The first volunteers gathered in the back house of Nithya Raman’s Silver Lake home with little besides a whiteboard counting down the number of days until the June 2 primary election.Raman had jumped into the Los Angeles mayor’s race the day before, right at the Feb.

7 filing deadline.Her campaign didn’t have an office, a bank account, a campaign treasurer, or even a proper website.It lacked, put simply, “the most basic things,” said Ian Manheimer, Raman’s campaign manager, who joined the team after a 10 p.m.

call from Raman the night before the filing deadline.There would be a meeting the next day in Raman’s backyard accessory dwelling unit to get things rolling.

“For anyone who suspected Nithya had designs on this for a long time, you could just come to the ADU and that would dispel those notions,” Manheimer said.Those unassuming beginnings in Raman’s backyard, with her parents and her husband’s parents taking turns cooking vegetarian Indian lunches for the small staff, evolved into a disciplined campaign that overcame initial struggles to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, a veteran politician who had racked up endorsements from most of L.A.’s traditional power brokers.

Raman did it on a hyper-abbreviated timeline by turning out and expanding her base of younger renters, pitching herself successfully to Latino voters, securing late but key endorsements from groups and officials that gave massive support to her campaign’s ground game and by running on a hopeful message about restoring city services against a deeply unpopular mayor.From the moment she got into the race, there was an evident, yet narrow lane for the progressive, second-term council member to rise to the city’s highest office, but it was far from clear that she would be able to make it through.For much of the primary, Raman and her campaign were all alone.She had few endorsements, and almost no...