Meet Rae Huang, the Progressive Pastor Running for LA Mayor
Reverend Rae Huang is running for mayor of Los Angeles on a platform to expand the public sphere: social housing, free buses, a public bank, and public movie theaters. She explains how her political vision was shaped in part by her Christian background.
Growing up in the church, Reverend Rae Huang volunteered at soup kitchens. Then she began to ask: Why do the same people keep coming back? The answers led her to run for Los Angeles mayor on a progressive affordability platform. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Rae Huang is a pastor and community organizer. She’s been a visible presence in the landscape of left-wing activism in Los Angeles for many years, and now she’s running for mayor.
Most progressive voters I’ve talked to seem to agree that Huang would be their first choice (and the somewhat more moderate Nithya Raman their second choice) if elections here used ranked-choice voting. Since they don’t, many are anxiously eyeing the polls and weighing a pragmatic calculation that Raman has a better chance of making it into the runoff against the hope for a Huang breakthrough.
Whatever you make of these debates about horse race and strategy, though, I thought Huang laid out a compelling vision of how the city could and should change when we spoke earlier this week. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
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