California has a longstanding reputation as one of the most progressive parts of the country, but as the Democratic Socialists of America appears to grow in influence, there is unlikely to be a leader to emerge in the movement on the West Coast like Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, senator-elect in Michigan, experts told JNS.
The DSA is “still largely an urban movement in California, just like most anywhere else,” Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist in Sacramento, told JNS. “But there’s no DSA star.”
Dan Schnur, who lectures on political science at multiple schools, including the University of California, Berkeley, told JNS that democratic socialist candidates seem to have “a greater obstacle here than in other parts of the country.”
“Because California and the other Pacific states are already so deep-blue, it’s more difficult for an even more progressive DSA candidate to establish a contrast with an opponent who is more similar to them,” he said.
Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist who ousted Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass earlier this month in the midterm elections, contrasted herself and the incumbent based on the mayor’s “management and administrative oversight goals” rather than ideology, according to Schnur.
Jared Sclar, a Democratic political consultant in San Diego, told JNS that the reason no nationally prominent West Coast democratic socialist leader has emerged is “partly by design of the local environment.”
“On the West Coast, the broader Democratic establishment is already quite progressive, unlike in New York or Michigan, where the DSA effectively created a lane to the Left of a more moderate, entrenched machine,” he said.
“Here, if you run on a DSA platform in a deep-blue district, you’re often running against someone who already shares 90% of your platform, making it much harder to create that ‘outsider’ insurgent identity,” Sclar told JNS.
The overlap in policy between California establishment Democrats and the DSA is “bigger than most people outside the state realize,” according to the consultant.
“California Democrats have already enacted a lot of what DSA campaigns on elsewhere: a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers, a statewide rent cap, sanctuary state protections, aggressive climate mandates and a stated goal of universal health coverage,” Sclar told JNS.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who seems to be weighing a 2028 presidential run, was asked in a September interview on PBS NewsHour if more DSA ideas should be put into the Democratic Party platform.
“I think they are,” he said. “If it’s about more money in your pocket, lowering costs, it’s about getting money out of politics and it’s about Medicare for all. I think we’re pretty aligned.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), thought to be another possible 2028 presidential contender, has self-identified as a “progressive capitalist” but has backed Mamdani, El-Sayed and Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist who won the open House seat in Pennsylvania.
Mainstream Democrats in California and the DSA differ on “who pays, what gets built and how far you go,” according to Sclar.
Democratic socialists want to tax wealth “directly,” while establishment Democrats do not, Sclar told JNS. He noted that Newsom has opposed Proposition 40, which would have imposed a tax on billionaires, and backed Proposition 42, a countermeasure that Sclar said would “ban wealth taxes altogether.”
Voters rejected Prop 40, and Prop 42 is leading by some 354,000 votes, with 89% of the vote counted, according to the Associated Press.
Doesn’t fit the ‘Mamdani mold’
The largest gap between establishment California Democrats and the DSA is Israel, according to Sclar.
Democratic socialists back the movement to boycott the Jewish state and oppose military aid to Israel, including for Iron Dome, he told JNS.
“Most of the West Coast Democratic establishment is at least somewhat pro-Israel,” Sclar said. “Unlike rent or wages, there’s no middle ground to split.”
Sclar doesn’t think that Raman, mayor-elect of Los Angeles, fits the “Mamdani mold.”
“She didn’t win as a socialist standard-bearer,” he said. “She won a race that turned on homelessness, housing costs and frustration with the fire response, which made it a referendum on performance more than ideology.”
“That reinforces the point,” Sclar told JNS. “Even the West Coast’s biggest Left-wing win of the cycle came from a candidate who kept some distance from the DSA brand.”
In Seattle, the local DSA chapter criticized Katie Wilson, the city’s socialist mayor, in January for conducting more than 100 sweeps of homeless encampments and for declining to stop using Flock Safety cameras that law enforcement agencies use. The chapter stated that there is an “embarrassing contrast” between Wilson and Mamdani on homelessness.
Though Seattle is the country’s 18th-largest city, Wilson hasn’t been covered in the news as a socialist and national leader.
After having defeated Bass, Raman’s upcoming mayoral tenure presents another test for the democratic socialist, who “now has to govern Los Angeles with a council, labor unions and a business community that don’t share DSA’s priorities,” Sclar said.
He noted that Los Angeles is slated to host the Olympics in summer 2028.
“If she governs as a pragmatist, it reinforces the West Coast model,” he told JNS.
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, told JNS that Raman can become a “prominent voice” in the democratic socialist movement as mayor of the country’s second-largest city.
“California’s Democrats are indeed more progressive than in other states,” he said. “Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass was one of those progressives, and while Raman’s candidacy was broader than her DSA backing, that was a key demarcation line between the two candidates.”
