Los Angeles Mayoral Race On A Knife’s Edge: Nithya Raman Within One Point Of Spencer Pratt As Federal Fraud Probes Mount
The race for the second spot in the November LOS ANGELES mayoral runoff is as close as it gets — and it may be getting closer.
With 78% of votes counted in the June primary, NITHYA RAMAN, a Democrat and current L.A. City Councilwoman, sits just over one percentage point behind Republican candidate SPENCER PRATT. The gap that once looked comfortable for PRATT has been shrinking steadily, day by day, batch by batch — and with roughly one in five ballots still to be counted, nothing about this race is settled.
As of the latest numbers, PRATT holds 27.32% of the vote while RAMAN stands at 26.21%. That 1.11-point margin is a fraction of what it was just days ago.
How We Got Here
On Saturday morning, the picture looked considerably different. PRATT was at 28.24% and RAMAN trailed at 24.89% — a gap of more than three percentage points. By Saturday night, that cushion had been cut to barely more than one point, as wave after wave of newly counted ballots broke heavily in RAMAN’s favor.
The pattern has been consistent throughout the week: each new update to the vote count has moved the needle toward RAMAN. Whether that trend continues — and whether it continues at a pace fast enough to close the remaining gap — depends entirely on what’s left in those uncounted ballots.
RAMAN has not publicly addressed the latest numbers on social media, keeping her campaign quiet as the count progresses.
PRATT, on the other hand, took a more colorful approach to the uncertainty. He responded to the latest results by posting a meme on social media — a still from the film A Beautiful Mind starring RUSSELL CROWE, showing a character surrounded by complex equations.
“Me trying to figure out how votes get counted in LA,” PRATT wrote alongside the image.
Bass Is Already Through — The Fight Is For Second
Incumbent Mayor KAREN BASS has already punched her ticket to the November general election, leading the field with 34.81% of the vote. Her place in the runoff is secure.
The entire drama of this primary now centers on who joins her. The candidate who finishes second — whichever of PRATT or RAMAN that turns out to be — will face BASS in the fall in what is expected to be a competitive and closely watched general election.
A PRATT versus BASS matchup would be a rare scenario in one of the most reliably Democratic cities in the country — a Republican challenging an incumbent Democrat for the mayoralty of LOS ANGELES. A RAMAN versus BASS race would be an intra-party contest between two Democrats with notably different approaches to the city’s biggest issues.
Either way, the stakes for November are significant. And right now, the outcome rests on a margin of roughly one percentage point.
Federal Investigations Enter The Race
The vote count is unfolding against a backdrop that has given the entire process national attention: confirmed federal investigations into election fraud claims in CALIFORNIA.
U.S. ATTORNEY BILL ESSAYLI announced this week that federal prosecutors are actively investigating multiple elections in the state. Officials did not specify which races are under the microscope, and no details about the nature of the allegations were made public.
The announcement came one day after PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP posted on TRUTH SOCIAL claiming there had been significant wrongdoing by the opposition party in CALIFORNIA’s ongoing elections, specifically pointing to the slow pace of vote counting as evidence of something suspicious.
Importantly, no evidence of actual fraud has been presented publicly, and election officials have not commented on the federal probe. CALIFORNIA’s extended counting timeline is largely a product of state law, which allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received and counted for several days after polls close — a process that has been in place for years and applies to all candidates equally.
What Happens Next
The counting continues. There is no fixed end date for when all ballots will be processed, and given the trajectory of this race, each new update has the potential to change the outcome.
RAMAN needs to continue outperforming PRATT in the remaining ballots at roughly the same rate she has been — or better — to complete the overturn. PRATT needs the remaining votes to be more balanced than what has come in recently to hold his position.
Neither camp can be certain of the outcome. Neither can the voters watching from home.
What is certain is that the LOS ANGELES mayoral race has become one of the most closely watched political contests in the country right now — for the closeness of the count, for the unusual cast of candidates, and for the federal scrutiny now surrounding the entire process.
The count goes on. And LOS ANGELES waits.
