Raman narrows – Nithya Raman narrowed Spencer Pratt’s lead after Wednesday afternoon post-election updates, bringing Pratt’s advantage down to 37,300 votes. The next daily result updates run through June 12, and vote-by-mail ballots could shift the race toward Mayor Karen Bas
Spencer Pratt looked like he’d built enough space to hold off Nithya Raman in the LA mayoral primary. Then the Wednesday afternoon updates landed—and the gap shrank.
With all in-person votes counted on Tuesday night, Pratt led by roughly 41,000 votes (about eight percentage points) over Raman. In the new post-election-day update released Wednesday afternoon, Pratt’s lead narrowed to 37,300 votes and seven percentage points. Pratt received 5,967 votes in the Wednesday update, while Raman received 8,961.
Mayor Karen Bass added 10,981 votes in the same update, bringing her vote total to 183,701—just under 35% of the overall vote. That puts the immediate pressure on the race for second place, the spot that would send Pratt and Raman into a November runoff against Bass.
Pratt’s position has been helped largely by in-person votes. But the remaining ballots—vote-by-mail—are still to be counted, and they are expected to skew more toward Bass and Raman. What will matter most now is whether Raman can catch Pratt with enough of those uncounted votes to advance.
VoteHub’s Zachary Donnini put the hurdle plainly: Raman would need to outperform Pratt among the uncounted votes by a margin of approximately 11%.
The Los Angeles County Registrar is scheduled to update the election results between 4–5 PM PT daily between now and June 12. In past election cycles, those day-by-day updates have produced large swings between initial election night totals and the final certified outcome.
A similar pattern played out in 2022. Real estate magnate Rick Caruso led Bass in the mayoral primary by roughly 8. 000 votes. but more than a week later—after mail-in ballots were counted—Bass had built a seven-percentage point lead for first place. In the November runoff that followed, Bass expanded that advantage to nearly ten points.
Raman’s own election history also shows how late counting can reshape plans. In 2024. she was running for re-election for her city council seat and initially had 44% of the primary vote. seemingly headed to a runoff against deputy city attorney Ethan Weaver. After all mail-in ballots were counted. Raman amassed enough votes to pass the 50% threshold needed to be re-elected without a runoff.
More to come…
Nithya Raman Spencer Pratt Karen Bass LA mayoral election runoff Vote-by-mail Los Angeles County Registrar VoteHub Zachary Donnini Rick Caruso Ethan Weaver