Tish Hyman strolled into Anytime Fitness in Chatsworth to talk directly to a cameraman from her campaign — and, she hoped, to potential voters.
“I’m on a gym tour, baby! I want to come to your gym. I want to work out with you,” she said before starting with squats, push-ups and bicep curls.
Hyman, 43, is a hip-hop artist and Grammy-nominated songwriter. and she’s running a long term campaign To become the next mayor of Los Angeles.
At the campaign stop, with some people seen sweating through workouts but no other voters, Hyman highlighted a central part of her platform: protesting transgender women in women’s locker rooms. The culture war issue may not play well in deep blue LA, but it’s gotten his name out there.
In a Dalit campaign, he said, name recognition is everything.
The race for LA mayor features five candidates who have dominated news coverage and fundraising: outgoing Mayor Karen Bass, City Council member Nitya Raman, reality television star Spencer Pratt, community organizer Rae Huang and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller.
But the nine other candidates in the June 2 primary, including Hyman, are much lesser known. They include a Gen Z video game streamer, a longtime engineer for the city and a mental health worker pregnant with her third child.
Everyone has to face a tough struggle. But they all hope — with varying degrees of seriousness — to lead the nation’s second-largest city, which is struggling with a homelessness crisis, skyrocketing housing costs and last year’s fires and federal immigration raids.
When 23-year-old Nelson Cheng received confirmation from the city clerk that he qualified as a candidate after submitting more than 500 signatures, he posted a video on Youtube. “My name is on the ballot! That’s mine!” He said laughingly holding the letter.
Cheng, who goes by the handle evilheartful, has 45,000 subscribers who follow her stream video Playing Roblox myself. His social media pages say he is “campaigning to make LASAGNA (make Los Angeles sexy and gorgeous in the Nelson administration)!”
In an Instagram message to The Times, Cheng said he is running because he wants to reduce traffic, crime and homelessness — and to voice privacy concerns about Roblox taking photos of users’ faces to verify their ages.
Asad Alnajjar, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, at Hawley Bernson Memorial Park in Porter Ranch.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Asad Alnajjar, a structural engineer who has worked for the city of L.A. for 36 years, describes himself “As in ‘Iron Resolve’ – the underdog who will move on to claim victory.”
Alnajjar, a 61-year-old immigrant from Baghdad and member of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, said that in a 1989 job interview with the city, he was asked where he saw himself years later. Easy, he replied. Mayor of Los Angeles.
Since then, he said, he has worked on city sidewalks, streetlights and the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport.
“If you don’t know the ins-and-outs and nuts-and-bolts of City Hall, how do you become mayor?” He said.
According to this, among the lesser-known candidates, Alnajjar has raised the most money as of April 18. City Ethics Commission. He has raised approximately $140,000 – $80,000 of which he has lent to his own campaign. By comparison, Bass has raised $2.8 million. Miller reported that he loaned his campaign $2.5 million and took donations of about $200,000, while Raman and Pratt have each raised more than $500,000.
Juanita Lopez kicked his campaign On a Low-Rider Club’s downtown cruise in March. Supporters waved a red, white and blue “Juanita López 4 Mayor 2026” sign from the trunk of a gold Chevrolet El Camino.
The sign read 2022, the year López first tried to run for office, but he was a few dozen signatures short before being voted off. She stuck a “2026” sticker on it and went on the campaign trail again, knocking on doors and posting outside the Target in Silver Lake to collect signatures.
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Juanita Lopez at Alvarado Terrace Park in Los Angeles.
(Gary Coronado/For The Times)
Lopez, who would not reveal her age, said she worked in banks for more than 17 years and once owned a small flower shop in the city. In 2022, she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Irvine – a degree she said she is pursuing to better qualify her for the mayor’s office.
As mayor, she said, she would ask non-violent prison inmates to pick up trash in exchange for remission from their sentences.
“I’ve seen Los Angeles when it was beautiful and what it’s been through,” he said. “It’s a shame to see our roads dirty. We pay so much in taxes.”
suzy kim A mental health therapist who works with people experiencing psychiatric crisis.
Kim, 44, said in an email that her campaign started late because she was busy working, supporting her mother, who is battling pancreatic cancer, and caring for her 2- and 4-year-old sons. She is pregnant with a girl around the time of June primary.
She said, “I understand some people may ask if I can do it all and take on the responsibility of serving as mayor. For me, the answer is yes.” decision to run She was motivated by her Christian faith.
Bryant Acosta is a Hollywood resident who runs a small business producing parties, raves, and other events.
(Courtesy of Bryant Acosta)
Also running is Hollywood resident Bryant Acosta, a small business owner who throws parties, raves and other events, many of which are geared toward the LGBTQ+ community.
“The good thing for me is that I’m used to being an underdog, being gay, and being Latino,” he said. “There’s never a seat for me at the table, so I have to make one.”
Acosta, 43, said he wants to help solve the city’s affordability crisis, which is keeping young people from buying homes and starting families because “our generation is ripe.”
Westchester/Playa Neighborhood Council member John Logsdon said billionaire developer Rick Caruso and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath threw their names into the ring at the last minute after deciding not to challenge Bass.
“I got all excited and said, ‘I’m just going to take a big hit,’ ” said Logsdon, 51, a film producer and director.
Lodson said he joined the neighborhood council after the 2018 shooting at a Westchester park where he and his 8-year-old son were playing. As mayor, he said, he would focus on public safety and increase the number of police officers and firefighters.
Andrej Salivara, a 40-year-old technical systems engineer and coder, said that, if elected, he would push to rapidly expand city bus and microshuttle lanes before the 2028 Summer Olympics and build low-cost, high-density public dormitories to help reduce homelessness.
Celivara spent part of his childhood in foster care and was homeless as a teenager, sleeping in his car for more than a year before enrolling in community college, he told The Times.
“our campaign “I was never going to win with money… but I’m a problem solver,” he said in an email. “And I have a habit of doing a lot with very little. I am creating a strategy that is more powerful than money. “People call it that.”
candidate Andrew KimA lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Hyman, who has hundreds of thousands of social media followers, is the most well-known of the Dalit candidates.
Last fall, he lost his membership at a local gym after a transgender woman was filmed walking into the locker room. Hyman yelled, “There are girls naked! Look at him walking there like it’s OK – it’s not OK!”
Videos of him confronting the woman and yelling abuses at gym staff about the gym goer’s genitals went viral, landing the interview with her tmz, fox news and conservative podcaster megyn kelly.
Immediately after the collision, In a talk by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), she said the presence of transgender women in the locker room — which is protected by state law – Made him feel unsafe.
“I’m a gay black woman,” she said. “I’m not transphobic. I’m not homophobic. … I’m telling you first and foremost as a woman this is dangerous.”
Wiener responded that “Trans women are brutalized in this country, too…and cisgender women are brutalized in this country, and we have to protect the safety of all women.”
At Anytime Fitness, general manager DeMarco Majors told Hyman’s campaign manager that a couple – both transgender women – were there to work out.
As Hyman filmed the talking points, the women quietly lifted weights next to a man wearing Turning Point USA T-shirts and camouflage National Rifle Association gear. gym bag.
Hyman, who recently lost more than 100 pounds, said that as mayor, she would promote healthy living and lead monthly public walks. She will also push to expand bar hours to boost the city’s nightlife.
“LA has a culture,” he said. “We have a culture, we’re beautiful, we love to work, we take care of our families, we love beauty, we love palm trees. … We love the weather, we love the landscape. This is our city – and we have to represent it.”
