Los Angeles city councillor Nithya Raman has pulled ahead of Spencer Pratt in the race to challenge incumbent Karen Bass in the November runoff, as election officials continue processing thousands of outstanding ballots from last week's vote.
Raman, a progressive who represents parts of the city, held a narrow lead of just over 3,000 votes as of Sunday afternoon, with 196,198 votes to Pratt's 193,085. The gap has tightened and shifted repeatedly as the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder counted mail-in ballots that arrived in the final days before the election. Nearly 150,000 ballots remain uncounted.
Pratt, the reality television personality endorsed by Donald Trump, had led for several days immediately following the election. But the trajectory has shifted in Raman's favor as slower-processing late ballots tend to favor Democratic voters, a pattern that has benefited candidates aligned with the party in California races this cycle.
The outcome remains genuinely uncertain. With roughly three weeks left for officials to complete counting and the margin razor-thin, either candidate could still advance to face Bass, who secured a commanding vote share and appears poised for the general election matchup.
The LA mayor's race has become a flashpoint in Trump's broader attacks on California's election integrity. The president has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the state's voting processes are rigged, calling them âcrooked" and alleging âcheating." On Friday, Trump walked out of a Meet the Press interview after making these false claims during his discussion with moderator Kristen Welker.
Federal law enforcement has moved into the fray. The Justice Department deployed a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, and Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed first assistant U.S. attorney for the central district of California, announced that his office and the FBI's Los Angeles field office are conducting âmultiple election fraud investigations."
Pratt himself has waded into the conspiracy theories swirling around California's extended vote count. Over the weekend, he posted cryptically on social media: "They're not the only ones who know where to find votes," accompanied by a winking emoji. In another post, he suggested that Raman's lead came disproportionately from votes cast by the city's unhoused population.
By Monday morning, Pratt had shifted tone, urging his supporters to remain patient and noting the narrow margin and outstanding ballots. "We're dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference, there's still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next 3 weeks to count," he wrote.
The slowness of California's ballot processing has left voters across the state in limbo on several high-profile races. In the gubernatorial contest, results remain unclear between Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer for a spot in the general election against Xavier Becerra, who already advanced after clinching votes on Friday.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump's decision to send federal prosecutors into California elections suggests he sees the state as a testing ground for his 2024 election narrative, and the tightness of these races is giving conspiracy theorists exactly the fuel they need."
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