The happiest place in Los Angeles on election night may have been the democratic socialist party in Highland Park — and it was about so much more than Prop. 50's victory.
The queue outside the Greyhound Bar & Grill Tuesday night snaked down the block and around the corner. Was this the right place?
I was looking for an election watch party hosted by four Los Angeles City Council members. But this looked like a crowd you might see waiting to get into a popular nightclub — hip, exuberant and skewing Gen Z, and definitely not grizzled political wonks.
The door was guarded by two attendants who seemed just as surprised by the throng of people hoping to get in. The party was organized the day before by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The organizers told me they did not expect such a robust turnout. The polls hadn’t even closed yet, and the bar in Highland Park was already over capacity.
What was the draw on a chilly November evening? It certainly wasn’t Proposition 50, the only thing on the California ballot that day and all but certain to pass. (It did. By a landslide.) Or at least, not only Proposition 50.
No, this was much bigger than a proposal to redraw congressional maps and put a check on President Trump.
This was about the counterrevolution brewing across America.
From school boards to gubernatorial races, voters from coast to coast delivered resounding rebukes Tuesday to the surging authoritarianism from the Trump administration and GOP — and to the feeble response from the Democratic Party establishment. To put it in California terms: Poke the bear and see what happens.
The star of the evening was Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist candidate for mayor in New York City whose surprise win in the Democratic primary in June electrified progressives in L.A. When the race was called for Mamdani about 7 p.m. (California time, obviously), the bar erupted in joyous noise: hoots, cheers and cries of “Sí, se puede.” “New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change,” the NYC mayor-elect said in his victory speech.
Mandate for change, huh? The sense of possibility in this room, more than 2,500 miles from New York, was almost palpable. If his working-class agenda could upend the political establishment there, why not in L.A where a progressive/democratic socialist movement has been steadily making gains in City Hall since 2020?
L.A. Councilwoman Nithya Raman, one of the hosts of the party and the first of four DSA-backed candidates to win a Council seat since 2020, paused for a moment when asked whether this was a watershed movement for the progressive movement.
Maybe more like a watershed for humanity. “I’m seeing this as a rejection of cruelty,” she said, “a rejection of the hateful values that have taken over in this country.” And a sign, she said, “that we are heading forward to a better future.”
“It shows our city is thirsty for progress, thirsty for building community,” said Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who was elected in 2022 and faces a tough re-election in 2026. Her district includes MacArthur Park, where federal immigration agents and National Guard troops paraded in July to show off their tanks, guns and apparent willingness to turn both on the citizenry if so ordered.
Last week I wrote a piece assessing the possibility that L.A. might elect its own Mamdani-esque mayor. Bottom line: Maybe, but probably not in 2026. Mayor Karen Bass might not be as progressive as many hoped during her 2022 election, but she’s certainly no conservative.
Next year could still be a huge one for L.A.’s progressive movement nevertheless, with DSA-aligned candidates in two council races — one challenging Councilmember Traci Park, another running for the seat a termed-out Curren Price holds now — and a strong candidate running against incumbent City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto. And if City Controller Kenneth Mejia is able to fend off a re-election challenge from former Democratic state legislator Isadore Hall, then democratic socialism would have a strong foothold in L.A.’s power structure, mayor’s office or not.
Tuesday night did offer one concrete takeaway for the progressives in L.A.: Next election, book a bigger venue.
