For members of the Democratic Socialists of America in Los Angeles—which held an election-night watch party at the Regent Theater on Tuesday night—all eyes were on mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who was holding her own party at the Greek Theatre. Photo: Getty Images Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story To quote Lana Del Rey, hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me—specifically, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America —to have. I’ve been volunteering for progressive candidates since I was 14 years old and haven’t missed a local or national election since I turned 18, but the reality of living in a democracy is that it’s a losing game to pin your hopes on any one politician. Even if they don’t personally let you down, the system they’re forced to operate within almost inevitably will.
Still, when New York’s 2025 mayoral race was called for Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani —someone I’d met in 2021, as he came off of a successful two-week hunger strike with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance —it made me feel like anything, or at least something , was possible. And a similar aura permeated the election-night watch party thrown by DSA Los Angeles at the Regent Theater on Tuesday, as members gathered to see the blue wave roll in.
I’m as sick of socialist jokes as the next leftist, but it has to be said: the crowd was largely young and stick-and-poked, their tote bags swinging in the early November breeze. A giant screen at the front of the space flipped through the election coverage on various channels (“Play Bravo!” one wit shouted through cupped hands) as we knocked back margaritas from the bar. Later, we listened to host Jamie Loftus and other leaders tout the six DSA candidates elected to the House that night —among other major wins —and thank the crowd for all their canvassing. I’d meant to stop by another election party at the Silverlake Lounge, but on the off chance that LA’s mayoral race was called for Nithya Raman , herself a DSA member, I thought that I should party with the people who would both celebrate her victory and work to push her further left from Day 1 of her tenure. (At the time of writing—nearly 24 hours later—her race against Karen Bass has still not officially been called.)
As the night went on, I spotted a group of cute, bearded, baseball-cap-clad guys reading funny election tweets aloud to each other while we waited for LA’s newly elected city attorney, Marissa Roy, to take the stage. (Soon hearing her inveigh against local ICE raids and lead the crowd in a chant of “Sue the landlords!” made me especially happy I’d stuck around.) Later, I found myself just outside the Regent, sharing a Parliament with a clutch of other party attendees who commiserated about falling behind on DSA dues. This called to mind for me the old joke about being able to identify the undercover FBI informants in the Students for a Democratic Society by the fact that they actually paid up every month.
In that moment, I allowed myself to sink fully into the beauty of being surrounded by hundreds of people with a shared vision not only for Los Angeles, but also the rest of the country, and who were ready to work for it. Or, as one attendee put it: “We’re libbing out tonight, but we’re organizing tomorrow.”