After five days of ballot counting, Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman has moved past former reality TV star Spencer Pratt for the second place spot in the city’s mayoral primary, putting her in line to advance to a November runoff against incumbent mayor and onetime ally Karen Bass.
Pratt took an initial lead of approximately 41,000 votes after in-person ballots from voting centers were counted on Election Day this past Tuesday. But as hundreds of thousands of vote-by-mail ballots were counted in the days that followed, Raman erased that lead with each new afternoon update provided by the county registrar, as she now leads Pratt by approximately 3,100 votes.
In the most recent drop, Raman added 19,096 votes compared to 8,489 votes for Pratt, bringing her running total to 196,198, or 27.1% of the vote. Bass, who added 15,691 votes, now has 34.1%.
As scrutiny has been fixed towards California’s vote-counting process, which prioritizes offering more voting options through mail as opposed to fast results, President Donald Trump has baselessly accused Los Angeles officials of rigging the election against Pratt, prompting assistant U.S. attorney Bill Essayli to announce federal probes into California’s election system.
Also casting doubt and aspersion on the process: Pratt, who after Sunday’s results were announced, suggested that Raman’s surging voters might just be votes harvested from Los Angeles’ homeless population.
By contrast, the Los Angeles GOP called the long voting process “standard for California’s elections,” while noting that it is “committed to full transparency” and is observing the vote count closely.
A Bass vs. Raman runoff is one that didn’t at all seem to be in the cards for Los Angeles at the start of 2026, as Bass faced a lack of major Democrat challengers despite facing intense scrutiny over her handling of the 2025 wildfires that destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. But less than an hour before the filing deadline, Raman, who had been closely aligned with Bass and had previously endorsed her, threw her hat into the mayoral race.
Raman was first elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2020 over then-incumbent David Ryu, marking the first time since 2003 that a city council candidate in L.A. had defeated an incumbent. As the former executive director of Time’s Up and co-founder of the homelessness outreach group SELAH, Raman was elected via a coalition of entertainment industry workers, homelessness and renter advocates, and left-wing organizations like Ground Game LA and Democratic Socialists of America LA.
But notably, Raman, who is still running to Bass’ left, did not have DSA-LA’s full support in this primary. While the organization recommended a vote for her in its voter guide, DSA-LA members voted not to endorse any candidate in the mayoral primary as endorsements for the organization come with organized canvasses and fundraising on the candidates’ behalf.
Raman has instead campaigned with endorsements from groups like Housing Action Coalition, Abundant Housing LA and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), as well as help from some Hollywood talent like comedian and podcaster Adam Conover and “Tuca & Bertie” creator Lisa Hanawalt.
On the Hollywood front, both Bass and Raman have made reversing the recent steep decline in local film and television production a part of their campaign platform. As mayor, Bass has made multiple public appearances at soundstage construction sites and Hollywood backlots over the past year as California has expanded its production tax incentive program, touting the recent hiring of film liaison Steve Kang to assist productions with the city’s complex bureaucracy and eliminate hurdles to shooting on-location.
Bass has also touted plans with FilmLA, the city council and the Board of Public Works to cut back on production fees, telling TheWrap she is committed to “eliminating or changing or waiving whatever is in the way.” Raman, meanwhile, wants to expand Kang’s film liaison office into a fully staffed department in the mayor’s office and supports expanding the number of productions that can apply for FilmLA’s recently launched “low impact” expedited permitting process and making drastic cutbacks to the special conditions that have been set up throughout Los Angeles’ neighborhoods for shooting.