One of the more surprising twists of this election was the decision by three of LA’s most progressive councilmembers, Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martínez, and Ysabel Jurado, to back Karen Bass over Nithya Raman.

All three belong to DSA-LA, as does Raman, and they’ve often voted together on policing, homelessness, and tenant protections. So when Raman entered the mayor’s race, you might have expected her fellow socialists on the council to rally behind her. Instead, they stuck with Bass.

Former Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky suggested that the three were trying to maintain good relationships with a mayor they expected to win. It’s not hard to see the logic – councilmembers need the mayor’s cooperation to get things done in their districts, and at the time, Bass looked like the safer bet.

But voters in their districts made a very different choice. According to preliminary returns compiled by Vibrant LA, Raman won 67.5% of the vote in Hernandez’s district, 66.3% in Soto-Martínez’s, and 63.6% in Jurado’s. These were among Raman’s strongest showings anywhere in the city. So the voters who elected three of LA’s most prominent socialists overwhelmingly backed the candidate those councilmembers campaigned against.

Now the political math has flipped, with Raman heading to the mayor’s office, and the three other members of the progressive bloc needing her support on the issues they’ve spent years fighting for together.

Of course, there’s no reason this has to become a lasting rift. The four still have plenty of common ground, and a mayor and councilmembers who share broad political goals could accomplish a lot together. But rebuilding trust may take some work, especially if the endorsements reflected deeper disagreements or distrust around strategy, loyalty, or the direction of LA’s progressive movement.