As Los Angeles drags out its ballot counting yet again, a reality TV star turned anti-establishment candidate is watching his once-comfortable lead shrink to a razor-thin margin that could knock him out of the mayor’s race in full view of a deeply skeptical public.
Story Snapshot
- Spencer Pratt’s lead over Nithya Raman for the second runoff spot has collapsed to about 1 percentage point as late ballots pour in.[1][3][7]
- Raman is gaining roughly two votes for every one Pratt adds in recent ballot drops, raising real questions about who will face Mayor Karen Bass in November.[1][2][3][4][5][7]
- Media and election officials say the race is “unresolved” with hundreds of thousands of ballots still being processed under California’s long counting rules.[2][3][4]
- The drawn-out process is fueling broader distrust across the political spectrum toward a system many already see as serving entrenched elites, not ordinary voters.[2][3][4][5]
How the Pratt–Raman Showdown Got This Close
Election-night returns initially showed reality television personality Spencer Pratt in a seemingly solid second place, well ahead of Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman in the primary to decide who faces Mayor Karen Bass in November.[1][2][4] Early counts had Pratt around 29% and Raman roughly 23%, a gap of more than 40,000 votes that looked safe by traditional standards.[1][2][4] As more vote-by-mail ballots were processed over the next several days, however, Raman began steadily eroding Pratt’s margin.[1][2][3][4]
By Friday’s update, Los Angeles County’s official tallies showed Pratt at 174,260 votes, or 28.24%, and Raman at 153,588 votes, or 24.89%, shrinking his lead to about 20,672 votes and 3.4 percentage points.[2][4] The Los Angeles Times then reported that a subsequent batch of mail ballots cut that gap further, putting Pratt at just over 27% and Raman slightly over 26%, with only 7,494 votes separating them.[1][3][7] Local television coverage described the difference as roughly one percentage point with about 78% of the vote counted.[3][7]
The Mechanics Behind Raman’s Late Surge
Registrar updates and local reporting show a consistent pattern: recent mail-in ballot batches are breaking heavily for Raman while Pratt’s share stagnates.[1][2][3][4][5] One Friday report noted that since Thursday’s returns, Raman gained about 23,115 additional votes, or roughly 38% of that day’s new batch, compared with only about 10,711 new votes, or 18%, for Pratt.[2][4] Another broadcast summarized the same trend more starkly, saying Raman effectively received about twice as many new votes as Pratt in the last 24 hours of counting.[5][7]
Election analysts quoted by CBS News emphasized that Pratt has been “losing share of the vote with every one of these new ballot dumps” and predicted that pattern could continue as more late-arriving mail ballots are processed.[3] The Los Angeles Times similarly noted that the most recent batch of counted mail ballots gave Raman more than 23,000 votes compared with just over 10,000 for Pratt, underscoring that late-count ballots, so far, favor the progressive city council member.[1][3] Those numbers explain how a multi-point deficit has collapsed into a nail-biter.
Slow Counts, Deep Suspicion, and a System Many No Longer Trust
California’s election rules are central to why this race remains unresolved and why suspicion is spreading among voters who already feel the system is rigged for insiders.[2][3][4] Counties have up to 30 days to process provisional ballots, and mail ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days to be counted, which means significant vote shifts can happen long after the televised “election night.”[3] Local outlets stress that officials do not even know the exact number of outstanding mail, provisional, and other ballots yet to be processed.[2][3][4]
MAGA’s now baselessly claiming the LA mayoral race is being “stolen” from Spencer Pratt due to his lead narrowing as mail-in ballots come in, giving Councilmember Nithya Raman an edge. https://t.co/qkT20VXb1D
— Julianne McShane (@JulianneMcShane) June 7, 2026
For citizens across the ideological spectrum who see a federal and state system run by permanent political and bureaucratic classes, this drawn-out process feeds existing fears.[2][3][4][5] Conservatives frustrated by years of mail-voting expansions and opaque ballot “dumps” see a familiar pattern: an outsider Republican like Pratt builds an early lead, then watches it melt away in slow-motion as late ballots surface.[3][5] Progressives skeptical of corporate donors and political dynasties see another insider-friendly environment where establishment figures navigate complex rules better than ordinary challengers.[1][2][3][6]
What This Fight Says About Power in Los Angeles
Regardless of who ultimately finishes second, the Pratt–Raman contest is exposing deeper questions about who Los Angeles government really serves.[1][2][3][5][6] Mayor Karen Bass, a well-known Democratic figure, has already secured her place in the November runoff, and several commentators suggest she might actually prefer to face Pratt, a polarizing reality television personality, rather than Raman, a sitting councilmember with an organized progressive base.[1][3][5][6] A recent opinion piece argued that such a matchup might benefit Bass politically more than it benefits city residents hungry for real solutions.[5]
That dynamic hits a nerve with many voters who feel trapped between ideological extremes and a status quo that has failed to deliver affordable housing, public safety, reliable infrastructure, or a functional path to the American Dream.[1][2][3][5][6] Watching a tight, slow-motion count decided by obscure procedures and delayed ballot batches, residents on both the right and the left see a process that looks designed for insiders, consultants, and donors—not ordinary Angelenos juggling rising costs, unsafe streets, and stagnant wages.[2][3][4][5][6] Whatever the final margin, the story here is bigger than one celebrity candidate’s slipping lead.
Sources:
[1] Web – Spencer Pratt’s lead over Nithya Raman withers in bombshell ballot …
[2] Web – LA mayor’s race: Nithya Raman surges, closes gap on Spencer Pratt for …
[3] Web – Pratt’s lead over Raman further erodes in new L.A. mayoral race …
[4] Web – Raman closes in on Pratt as more votes in L.A. mayor’s race are …
[5] YouTube – LA Mayor race update: Spencer Pratt maintains lead over …
[6] Web – Spencer Pratt’s LA mayoral primary lead narrows after zero new votes
[7] Web – Opinion | The race that benefits Karen Bass doesn’t benefit LA voters
