MEET OUR CANDIDATES!

The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-LA) is proud to endorse nine our fellow members for the 2026 general election. They are a team of union leaders, renters, tenant organizers, parents, and activists who are committed to working class values and ready to create real change across Los Angeles.

Nithya Raman

for Los Angeles City Mayor

In the Los Angeles City Council, Nithya Raman has worked tirelessly to lower housing costs and build more housing. She has passed legislation to accelerate housing production through zoning and planning reforms and overhaul permitting processes to eliminate unnecessary delays. She has championed tenant protections, leading the charge to pass the strongest set of renter protections in the entire country – including revising the Rent Stabilization Ordinance to reduce rental increases for the first time in 40 years, creating a right-to-counsel program, and adopting anti-displacement measures. She has also championed many sustainability initiatives and environmental action to create a healthier Los Angeles.

Nithya has worked to reform the City’s approach to homelessness, pushing for greater oversight of City spending, strengthening data collection, and improving coordination between city departments and service providers. Under her leadership, her district saw some of the largest drops in unsheltered homelessness across the city. She believes Los Angeles is in a moment of crisis that requires urgency, accountability, and ambition, not half-measures and protecting the status quo.

Marissa Roy

for Los Angeles City Attorney

Marissa Roy is a lifelong Angeleno who has spent her career fighting for the people. From her start as a Deputy City Attorney to her current role as a Deputy Attorney General, Marissa has fought to protect working families, renters, immigrants, and all Californians. 

Marissa has dedicated her entire career as an attorney bringing civil rights and consumer protection litigation on behalf of local and state government. She's helped build landmark lawsuits against companies that exploited workers, she's taken on Trump in court, and she's even sued tech giants like Meta. She's running to make sure that the powerful role of Los Angeles City Attorney is used to protect those who need it most.

Angela Gonzales-Torres

for California's 34th Congressional District

Angela Gonzales-Torres is a lifelong Angeleno who has spent her life fighting to put people and the planet before profits. From her role as President of her Neighborhood Council to her work in the Los Angeles Mayor's Office, on Metro's Public Safety Advisory Committee, and as an advocate for justice, Angela has stood with her neighbors across the district—a community carrying the highest costs of incarceration, the dirtiest air in the county, and the most eviction notices in the city—in the absence of the current congressmember. She is moved by the urgency of this moment as the daughter of a deportee raised by a single mother on SNAP, and by her years helping people transition from prison into universities. She's running a student-led campaign for Congress to unseat one of AIPAC's top recipients of contributions, get corporate money out of politics, and pass Medicare for All, because Los Angeles deserves federal representation that reflects the courage of its people.

In office, Angela would immediately sign on to Block the Bombs, support a nationwide data center moratorium, the Green New Deal for Social Housing Act, legislation to stop price gouging in our grocery stores, abolish super PACs, and push for a humane federal minimum wage, taxing billionaires, and securing voting rights.

Estuardo Mazariegos

for Los Angeles City Council, District 9

Estuardo Mazariegos is a lifelong resident of South Los Angeles and democratic socialist running for City Council District 9. For nearly twenty years, Estuardo has been a tireless community organizer and currently serves as Co-Director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). His commitment to the working class is personal—he was raised by union healthcare workers, helped organize janitors with SEIU-USWW, and led campaigns to win the Fight for $15. Estuardo has been a DSA member for five years and has organized with the chapter to resist Amazon’s expansion and fight for the Power to the Tenants campaign.

Estuardo is running to represent District 9, the city’s lowest-income district, where residents have long faced disinvestment and exploitation. The stakes of this election are defined by his primary opponent, Jose Ugarte. As the long-time aide to the incumbent Councilmember, Curren Price, Ugarte was expected to have an easy path to victory. Ugarte is the prototypical representative of the "Status Quo Coalition" identified in our Democratic Socialist Program (DSP). This coalition might use progressive language and make discursive nods to liberatory notions, but they fundamentally maintain a system that prioritizes real estate developers over working families. Estuardo is running to break this status quo machine and redistribute wealth back to the people.

Nolan Southerland

for Burbank City Council

Nolan Southerland is a father, community organizer, entertainment union member, and Burbank resident for over a decade – and is proud to be a cadre DSA member. In Burbank, Nolan has been active in Burbank Tenants Union organizing for rent stabilization and tenant protections. He’s also been a leader in the Burbank Community Defense Coalition, protecting our immigrant neighbors from ICE. He is running for office because members of his community asked him to represent their interests in City Hall.

Mike Van Gorder

for Burbank City Council

Mike Van Gorder is a Senior Housing Policy Analyst for the State of California that came to his career through the fight for rent control and tenants' advocacy. Mike is also a public school dad of two girls, and trying to force the urban planning decisions that will yield the housing opportunities that will allow them to live independently. He’s a cost-burdened homeowner, a proud member of SEIU 1000, a seasoned anti-ICE organizer and community defender, and DSA-LA SFV Branch organizer and a three-time elected delegate to the State Democratic Party, to which he’s foregrounded his democratic socialist priorities.

Stephen Post

for West Hollywood City Council

Stephen Post and is a nonprofit advocate running for West Hollywood City Council bringing a deep commitment to public safety, equity, and community-driven solutions. Stephen currently serves as Vice Chair of the Public Safety Commission for the City of West Hollywood and hold a Master’s of Public Administration from The Ohio State University. At the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative he serves as the Business Improvement District Manager leading community-serving initiatives that keep LA thriving like neighborhood infrastructure and safety efforts. Stephen previously worked at the Last Prisoner Project, where he advocated for criminal justice and drug policy reforms.

As a democratic socialist, he will champion policies that protect working families, not special interests. Having served on numerous boards and commissions, he has the expertise in nonprofit, public, and private partnerships that shift policy and create real human impact. 

 Estefany Castañeda

for Centinela Valley Union High School District Board

Estefany Castañeda is a lifelong Lennox resident, labor organizer, and vice president of the Centinela Valley Union High School District Board. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was first elected in 2018 while completing her degree at CSUN, defeating a ten-year incumbent through a grassroots campaign. Her district includes working-class communities across Lennox, Hawthorne, and Inglewood.

Estefany has organized alongside workers with UNITE HERE Local 11 and has fought to fully fund public education and special education, protect immigrant families, and ensure that students, workers, and families have a meaningful voice in the decisions affecting their communities.

Yaritza González

for Inglewood Unified School Board of Education Trustee, Area 3

Yaritza is a committed community organizer and longtime Inglewood resident who has been organizing in line with socialist values for quite some time - she currently works at CARECEN and is a co-founder and co-director of the ING Fellowship, which is organizing to pass the Inglewood for All Act that would provide sanctuary city protections for immigrants. Most recently she helped organize an action outside of SoFi Stadium alongside UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Boycott Home Depot Coalition and other Inglewood activists to demand protections for the most vulnerable members of our communities.

Yaritza is a member of DSA-LA, who has been organizing in tandem with the chapter’s Immigration Justice Committee since 2024, and is running as a proud democratic socialist. Her platform is primarily by and for the working class: Yaritza wants to make sure we Get Teachers Paid, Keep Schools Open, and Create Safe Schools by engaging with the community to address impacts of immigration enforcement and displacement.