L.A. Mayoral Hopeful Nithya Raman Bets on Microdramas for Youth Vote

Councilwoman Nithya Raman's campaign for Los Angeles mayor is spending $15,000 on four new microdramas — short-form vertical videos — to reach young voters ahead of the November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.

The production is underway on an unseasonably warm September day at the Capital Arts soundstages in Chatsworth, where the air conditioning has gone out and the crew has one day to shoot all four spots. They are running behind schedule.

"Quiet please!" "We're having fun!" shouts director Ryan Wagner. "Even if we mess up, we're having fun! Action!"

Raman is due on set in about 45 minutes, and the crew is squeezing in as many takes as possible of a telenovela-themed spot before resetting for the candidate's scene. Actors Hannah Martinez and Adriana Palacios zip through melodramatic Spanish dialogue punctuated by a farcical face slap. "It should feel very campy," Wagner tells them.

The strategy rests on hard numbers. In the latest L.A. Times poll, Raman led Bass among voters aged 18-29, with 66% choosing Raman and just 4% choosing Bass. But young voters are hard to reach through conventional channels, so the campaign has turned to the microdrama format that has sprung up across Los Angeles in the last two years. The crew behind this production are mostly in their 20s and all work in that ecosystem.

Wagner, 31, got his start in independent film and is now creative director at CandyJar, one of many microdrama platforms. His directing credits include "The Arrangement," "Double Take," and "Loving My Brother's Best Friend." He volunteered to knock on doors for Raman during the primary but quickly chafed at it.

"I was canvassing, and doing a terrible job and getting really sweaty," he said in an interview. "And I was kind of thinking, 'Is there anything else I could possibly do to contribute to this?'"

He pitched the campaign an offer: in their spare time, he and his friends would produce a few microdramas free of charge. If the campaign liked them, it could post them. "They were both very supportive and also quite skeptical of… 'What even is this?'" Wagner said.

The campaign reviewed the scripts but was otherwise uninvolved, according to producer Kemma Filby, who often works with Wagner. Only after the videos were delivered did the staff fully embrace them.

"It's a bit of a risk, I think, to engage with microdramas. A lot of people just still don't understand them," she said. "But I think it's a space where people are getting lots of views — and it's also fun. Young people want to see politicians who can engage with the culture and be a little silly."

The primary-season videos paired soap-opera plotlines with detailed discussions of Raman's positions on public transit, tenant protections and rent stabilization. They racked up more than 850,000 views, according to the Raman campaign, making them some of the best performing content of the primary. Young voters helped propel Raman to a surprise second-place finish in June.

That performance convinced the campaign to invest $15,000 in four more videos for the runoff. "They did such an incredible job that we knew that we wanted to get four more in the general," said Kyle Rohrbach, who oversees video content for Raman. "It's really important for campaigns these days to meet people where they're at."

To reach Latinos — a critical demographic in the runoff — the campaign asked that one of the new videos be in Spanish. The videos also nod to Hollywood workers, many of whom have turned to the microdrama format in the absence of other production work. Filby, whose producing credits include "Chasing Kiarra" and "I Accidentally Stole the Bad Boy's First Kiss," said: "For so many people, their livelihood right now is dependent on microdramas. Honestly, while it's not something I expected to find myself doing, I'm very grateful that the industry exists because it's given so many of us steady work."

The campaign funding bought lunch and modest stipends for the crew, but even during the unpaid primary round Wagner had little trouble recruiting friends. "All these people were already Nithya supporters," he said. "Everyone here wants to be here, and the process of making it is fun. This is one of the least cynical experiences I've been a part of."

The new spots — designed for vertical viewing on Instagram and other platforms, with horizontal versions also supplied — include a parody of "The Pitt" targeting the big-money donors behind Bass's campaign, a "Mean Girls" spoof highlighting Raman's opposition to a $1 billion LAPD contract, and a police-precinct sketch in which a detective credits Raman for pushing back on the "lie" that City Hall must be incompetent.

Raman arrives on schedule to deliver her line in the precinct sketch, gets miked up and hits her mark. Wagner, who wrote the script, asks whether the words are too ridiculous. "They're great," she says. After a few takes, he calls a wrap.

"Thank you to all of you," Raman tells the crew. "Thank you for believing L.A. can be better."

Raman did not appear in the original videos, and Wagner sees her presence as a signal of the format's value. "Having her here, I think, is the most solid endorsement that this is something that feels worth her time, and is actually helping the campaign," he said. If the runoff breaks the way the youth poll numbers suggest, other campaigns may soon be booking soundstages of their own.