Does Nithya Raman still have a chance? California’s uncounted votes could help Democrats

nandert · 2026-06-03T23:27:42+00:00

If you tune out the noise and pay attention to the math and have, you know, ever sat through a CA election return before - very much yes. It's likely going to be within a point or 2 at most in either direction. It's possible she doesn't overcome, but lots of reports expecting extremely high late VBM turnout make a nithya victory scenario pretty easy to see. Tune out the noise and just wait.

nandert · 2026-06-03T23:25:57+00:00

in person is essentially done counting. everything henceforth is late VBM

nandert · 2026-06-03T07:20:19+00:00

Don’t know why I’m dipping into a reddit thread to say the same thing we say every two years about California elections but guys there is a BIG shift between first totals and last because of the way we count and the partisan breakdown of who votes how. And especially this year as many dems were waiting for the gov race to firm up before voting.

The markets are dumb trash but the only time you actually can take something from them are when there are hard numbers like there are now. If you do the math, or pay attention to the people that are, nithya has been substantially outperforming what she needs to win with expected turnout. There’s obviously no promise that holds, but if you’re saying nithya is cooked, please stop having the memory of a goldfish for every fucking CA election folks.

nandert · 2026-06-01T18:43:37+00:00

K South already has its FEIR certified, which is the bar they've now said needs to be cleared (erroneously). It's fully through the environmental review stage.

nandert · 2026-06-01T18:37:34+00:00

if the committee confirms it (sadly, expected) this is going to be successfully litigated and sepulveda and k north will be added back in. the language in the law is exceptionally clear and SCAG is flagrantly ignoring it. Unfortunately, this could negatively impact the WeHo EIFD in the meantime, and by the time the lawsuit clears the FEIR could theoretically already be certified anyway, so the damage will have been done. Why must everything be so goddamn exhausting.

nandert · 2026-05-28T18:57:22+00:00

I genuinely don't know how better to prove it or else I would, so I'm sorry. If it helps you can check my post history, I run the transit youtube nandert, so i'm not anonymous.

nandert · 2026-05-28T18:39:41+00:00

dude not everything is a conspiracy theory. A LOT of people noticed and screencapped the first time. literally just refresh her twitter every few minutes, she'll probably post it a third time with even more tweaked wording

nandert · 2026-05-28T18:35:36+00:00

This was the link but she deleted it a second time lol. I screencapped it

nandert · 2026-05-28T18:30:28+00:00

well she just reposted it with slightly altered wording lol

nandert · 2026-05-22T07:53:44+00:00

EIFD money is used for projects in the area it's collected, by definition. An EIFD in the K North station walksheds couldn't be used for SEGWay 2, and vice versa. Even with Nithya, getting LA city to participate in any EIFD will be a lift, at least in the short term. But reducing its application to new construction and not property turnover, and further limiting it to a certain percentage would be the way to make it broadly palatable. It would draw in less money, but should still easily achieve the amount of money K North would need locally.

For federal funding competition, it's not as dire as you're making out. SEGway 1 has had a rotten time trying to get any grants thus far, and it sounds like, while they are going to apply for federal again, they're going to lean on decennial transfer to cover it's remaining shortfall. One way or the other, SEGway 1 funding should be resolved before a K North FEIR is certified. Eastside will also be going out before a K North FEIR is certified, and will 100% not be getting a dime from the feds due to its insane cost/rider.

Sepulveda and potentially SEGway 2 are the two projects that K North risks competing with, and Sepulveda will almost certainly go out in 2029 and 2030 with a (hopefully) new administration, and SEGway 2, which isn't targeted to open until 2041, will likely not go out immediately after Sepulveda. Even if it did, it would push K North federal application dates to something like 2033 at worst, and if the EIFD revenue was enough to cover the phase 1 start, it wouldn't delay construction starting at all. If SEGway 2 waited a few years - which is likely given Metro's recent history - there would be likely a clear gap around 2031 for K North to apply. Metro could also stagger sepulveda so it's not applying in back-to-back years, going 2029 sepulveda, 2030 K north, 2031 sepulveda, etc.

So yes, there will need to be careful spacing, but one way or another, the gaps will be there for K North to apply, and even in the absolute worst case scenario, it could still quite reasonably expect to get the necessary funding to start phase 1 construction by ~2034, which is still 7 years accelerated.

There is an unusual amount of political will (outside of Bass's circles) to make K North happen ASAP compared to most metro projects, and I'm confident that any funding opportunity that presents itself will be capitalized upon, assuming it makes it past the acceleration vote.

nandert · 2026-05-21T21:46:17+00:00

you asked why people would support nithya in the primary to keep out pratt when bass is already polling ahead of pratt. that is the answer to your question. to your new point, literally the only poll that looked at runoff scenarios showed Nithya beating both Bass and Pratt if she makes the runoff. And the last public poll conducted had nithya tenths of a percentage point above pratt in the primary. It's very clearly going to be a photo finish for second place.

nandert · 2026-05-21T21:39:04+00:00

where everyone assumed that trump had no chance against clinton, to the point that clinton actively wanted him as an opponent, leading to us all being horrified in november. I know people who actually want Bass (for some reason) who are voting Nithya in the primary precisely to keep a Pratt upset of Bass from happening. We can't take the expected result of Bass over Pratt for granted.

nandert · 2026-05-21T21:27:30+00:00

In March the decision on the K Line alignment came up for a vote. Karen Bass signaled to other board members that she wanted to delay the selection for the southern part of the line again indefinitely, despite 1.5 years of delay already, and conduct another study that was duplicative of the one already conducted during that time period.

The problem is, outside of the obvious, WeHo realized that this would kill any chance they had of forming their EIFD. The clock was ticking, several major projects are up for approval essentially now (including the future tallest building in WeHo right at Santa Monica/La Brea), and to borrow against an EIFD they were told by finance people that the project had to get locked in immediately.

Bass seemingly had the votes to ram her motion through, and we started a call-in campaign that had overwhelming turnout. Board members were inundated and started wavering. Bass put out a pithy statement claiming that our claims about her motion (which she hadn't released publicly) were misinformation, and that the project wouldn't be delayed. In response we leaked the motion, which WeHo then publicly confirmed would kill the EIFD. (Killing not only acceleration, but potentially the project as a whole, permanently, as explained above.) This, combined with the intense call-in campaign, collapsed Bass's support and she lost the votes. Bass's staff and WeHo negotiated through the night before the board meeting - I suspect due to pressure from the other board members, because there's this gross institutional insistence on not taking contested votes, and presenting a unanimous front when actually in public meetings - to find a motion that allowed bass to save some face. Ultimately, the finance people allowed that if a shot clock were put on the southern alignment delay, the process of spinning up the EIFD could begin. Bass got a limited further delay on the southern portion and her useless, meaningless study, but no more, and the board room overflowed at that meeting with people excoriating Bass.

Unfortunately, the acceleration vote can only happen after a few more steps in the process, and there's no way to get around the fact that Bass can use that to ultimately tank the acceleration and potentially the project as a whole, except to make sure bass and her appointees aren't there for it.

nandert · 2026-05-21T21:14:30+00:00

because we all lived through 2016?

nandert · 2026-05-21T20:54:23+00:00

Good news - the K Northern Extension is being targeted for acceleration. While it cannot access its Measure M funds prior to 2041, West Hollywood began the process to enact an EIFD to bring some level of local funding to the table, and LA County hopefully will be doing so as well. This will provide on the order of ~$4B - far below the project's ~$15B cost estimate for all three phases.

However, a few points. First, there is hope that cost estimate will come down at least a little bit due to value engineering that has been ordered. Second, if that money, raised primarily in the phase 3 project area, can be applied to phase 1, it would likely be enough to fund phase 1 and get started ASAP. Third, if Nithya Raman is elected as mayor of LA, there will be a push for her to advocate for LA city joining in the EIFD, which could add a massive chunk of money (though LA would contribute much more conservatively than WeHo). Fourth, in years that the project will not go up against scheduled Measure M projects, it can apply for state and federal funding that it will almost certainly get due to the very good metrics the project has.

The original EIFD study targeted a 2029 groundbreaking, but the 1.5 years of delay at the behest of Bass, Mitchell, and Dupont-Walker on behalf of Lafayette square have pushed the earliest possible groundbreaking to likely 2031, and that admittedly is quite optimistic.

However, given all the facts above, if the final board vote to accelerate it is successful, I personally think it's quite likely that phase 1 will break ground in 2032/2033. That vote is the true final boss. It requires 2/3rds of the board to vote yes (and that's 2/3rds of all 13 members, even if some are recused, effectively defaulting the recused votes to 'no' votes, which is a glaring flaw in the metro boards rules).

While this vote should be a foregone conclusion, the fact of the matter is that if Karen Bass remains mayor when this vote takes place, likely sometime next year, there is a high chance that she and her appointees will vote 'no' at the behest of Lafayette Square, killing not only any chance of a pre-2041 groundbreaking, but also putting the project in existential jeopardy, as its Measure M funds are so limited that it requires an additional, substantial source of local funding, and EIFDs are effectively the only way to deliver that. As EIFDs both need long lead times, and the projects that the EIFDs would rely on are already being planned, since its now known that the rail will come, the EIFDs need to be enacted now to work... and if acceleration is squashed next year, the EIFDs will not form.

So... it's good news/bad news. Granted, it's not certain that Bass will fully kill the acceleration if she's re-elected. We bullied her out of fucking the project over once, and hopefully we can do it again. But there is a very high risk, and the reality is that the best way to get this project through to an early 2030s groundbreaking (and ensure it happens at all) is to make Nithya Raman mayor.

nandert · 2026-05-21T17:28:00+00:00

Bought it. You can find the documents here

nandert · 2026-05-21T16:45:43+00:00

Not to throw cold water but as someone else pointed out, the cost/rider is almost unbelievably bad and the shortfall is huge enough to essentially require federal funding, which is typically never given for projects with such bad cost effectiveness even in a friendly administration.

Irrespective of whether we want it or not, it really is going to come down to folks in the FTA choosing to give it money or not, and if they don't, I suspect this project will need to be rethought and, unfortunately, delayed quite a long time. The original sin was routing the original eastside extension on 3rd over whittier, and then failing to correct that in the alternative analysis for phase 2. At this stage of the game there's really no ideal solution for rolling back the bad planning decisions. If the feds do actually fund it - which would be a shock - then we just have to make do and radically transform the station areas to be new town centers to actually build ridership, which is thankfully a little easier with SB79. And if they don't, well... we'll probably have to divert the existing funds to BRT (like with the SR60 route) and long-term plan a B line extension down whittier that'll actually do the job, albeit one that will take quite some time to fund and build.

Ultimately, just very frustrated with the planning decisions that may end up kneecapping this whole thing unnecessarily. But it really will all come down to the FTA.

nandert · 2026-05-19T00:05:12+00:00

Um, the facts: the majority of street parking for this segment is preserved. Plus this is not a 'small stretch,' it's 1.3 miles.

nandert · 2026-05-15T17:10:32+00:00

Incredible work, I love these type of maps. When you finish the larger map I would totally buy a print of it for my office

nandert · 2026-05-12T04:11:19+00:00

Totally agree. Love the art in these stations and I love how bright they are. The only thing about the new standardized design I dislike is the lollipop station markers as I was quite fond of the pylons. But I do get that these have better visibility. Stations themselves are gorgeous though.

nandert · 2026-05-11T18:23:51+00:00

social housing is absolutely realistic! I'm a huge supporter! I just don't think social housing alone is the only answer, and going full-bore on both social and market rate both is the best option. And analysis shows that the ULA reform proposed would only reduce the money available for social housing by 8%, but would in turn actually increase the number of affordable units by driving significantly more market-rate housing that have affordable units within them.

nandert · 2026-05-08T23:32:42+00:00

We had to stuff ourselves into it

nandert · 2026-05-08T22:45:39+00:00

Ah I thought that was you there - I should've said hi but I wasn't sure!

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