The assumption that early election night returns tell the whole story in California is a mistake. On Tuesday night, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt looked like a lock to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the November runoff. He held a comfortable lead. He had the cameras. He had the early momentum.
Now, that lead is melting away. Learn more on a related issue: this related article.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman is surging as county election officials process late-arriving mail-in and provisional ballots. Friday’s data drop from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk reveals a massive shift in momentum. The gap between second and third place just got incredibly tight, and it completely changes the calculus of the entire mayoral race.
The Raw Numbers Behind the Surge
Let's look at where things stand right now. Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass has already cruised into the November general election, leading the primary pack with 215,868 votes, which is about 35% of the total vote share. That was expected. The real battle is the knife fight for second place. Further journalism by The Washington Post explores similar views on the subject.
- Spencer Pratt: 174,260 votes (28.24%)
- Nithya Raman: 153,588 votes (24.89%)
Pratt’s lead has shrunk to exactly 20,672 votes. To put that in perspective, his lead was 40,302 votes on Wednesday and 33,076 on Thursday. Raman is currently trailing by just 3.4 percentage points, and the margin is closing fast.
The Friday ballot count was incredibly lopsided. Out of the 59,930 new votes tallied in that specific batch, Raman captured 38.6% of them. Bass took 34.1%, while Pratt pulled in a dismal 17.9%. Raman basically doubled Pratt's output in the latest update. With an estimated 200,000 ballots left to be processed across the county, Pratt is running out of track while Raman has all the tailwinds.
Why the Late Ballots Favor Raman
This isn't a fluke or a statistical anomaly. It's a structural reality of modern California elections.
Left-leaning voters, younger residents, and renters—the exact demographic core that supports a progressive like Raman—tend to drop their ballots in mailboxes or official drop boxes on Election Day itself. Because California counts ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive up to seven days later, these votes are always processed last.
Pratt’s base consists largely of older, more conservative homeowners who lost properties in disasters like last year’s Pacific Palisades fires. They vote early. They mail their ballots weeks in advance. That means Pratt hit his ceiling on Tuesday night. Raman, an urban planner with deep roots in grassroots organizations like Ground Game LA, relies on a highly organized field operation that thrives on late turnout. We saw this in her 2020 victory against David Ryu and her 2024 reelection against Ethan Weaver. She wins when the full electorate shows up.
What a Bass versus Raman Runoff Actually Means
If Raman manages to overtake Pratt, the political landscape of Los Angeles shifts dramatically.
A Bass-Pratt matchup is an easy win for the incumbent. Pratt has run a campaign far to the right of the city's mainstream electorate, focusing heavily on aggressive rhetoric regarding public safety and homelessness. He draws crowds, but he doesn't draw a majority. Internal polling leaked from the Bass camp shows that more than 90% of Raman’s supporters view Bass as their clear second choice. If Pratt makes it to November, Bass can coast to reelection without breaking a sweat, likely avoiding high-stakes debates altogether.
A head-to-head matchup between Bass and Raman forces a real debate about the progressive future of Los Angeles. Raman represents the city's activist left, backed heavily by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America. Her platform pushes for aggressive housing reform, participatory budgeting, and an overhaul of public safety.
If you want to track this race as it updates, you should bookmark the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder official results page. The next major data releases will drop over the coming days, and they will decide whether LA gets a standard ideological blowout or a fierce debate over the soul of the city. Keep your eye on the daily percentages. If Raman keeps pulling over 35% of the late batches, Pratt's time in second place is officially finished.
