Democratic socialist candidate Nithya Raman, who is running for Los Angeles mayor, faced some tough questions about her decision to hire the same consulting firm that elevated disgraced former Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner.

Platner’s campaign fell apart after a long list of scandals emerged. Soon after, Fight Agency, the organization that aided his campaign, came under scrutiny for not bothering to properly vet the candidate before promoting him.

During the mayoral debate, Raman was asked why she hired the same firm that managed Platner’s campaign.

“Well, I did hire an advertising agency to make my paid ads who also worked with Mayor Zohran Mamdani's successful mayoral campaign and many other … successful campaigns across the entire city,” Raman replied. “Here's what I do want to say, that I want to win this race. I've retained most of my good campaign staff, unlike this mayor, from the first primary, expanded in the general. We've made sure to invest in our team, and I hope that we can win this seat, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to win.”

The moderator pressed Raman on the matter, asking, “did you weigh the pros and cons of being associated with Graham Platner’s campaign?”

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Raman responded:

Absolutely, but we wanted to make sure that we were hiring good people to make our ads. We have to get talent to be able to run our team. We weighed the issues, but I also do want to say that in this mayor's innermost circle, she had communications advisors who were on her WhatsApp chats, who were also at the same time that the fire was burning in Boyle Heights, were doing crisis PR consulting for Lineage where the fire was happening. That to me is a real, real, real problem. And that's the kind of town that we need to be.

Fight Agency is a progressive media and consulting firm. It handled advertising and strategic support for Platner’s campaign. The firm garnered criticism after several scandals were revealed, including the former candidate’s Nazi tattoo, old Reddit posts in which he downplayed sexual assault, inappropriate text messages sent to women who were not his wife, and allegations of violent behavior and rape.

The firm continued to promote Platner even after all the information came out and allegedly pressured a former worker who raised concerns about his behavior.