Raman cuts deeper into Pratt's lead as new votes are tallied
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the second-place lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt Saturday, as his margin slimmed to just a single percentage point, according to the most recent results released by the county Saturday.
Pratt fell to slightly more than 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly more than 26%, according to the results from the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder. Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.
"We've seen Nithya Raman catching up on every update and the last two in particular she's accelerated," said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data company Political Data Inc. "She's continued to gain at a rate that means she will eventually catch up unless Pratt starts getting some ballots coming in that are either geographically or demographically better for him."
The second-place finisher in the mayoral primary will face Mayor Karen Bass in a Nov. 3 runoff. On election night Tuesday, the Associated Press determined that Bass had secured enough votes to qualify for the runoff.
Pratt has been in second place since then, but Raman has gradually eroded his lead as mail-in ballots have been counted. The updated vote tally released Thursday showed Pratt with 29% of the vote and Raman with 23%.
With Friday's update, Raman's share had risen to 25% and Pratt's had shrunk to 28%, for a 3 percentage point gap.
In the most recent batch of mail-in ballots counted, Raman received 23,514 votes, while Pratt gained 10,336.
Election analysts expected Raman to gain ground as the mail-in ballots were tallied, reasoning that many left-of-center voters - Raman's base - held onto their mail-in ballots until the last minute as they waited to choose between Democratic gubernatorial candidates. They also say younger, more progressive voters tend to hold onto their ballots longer generally.
Although the mayor's race is non-partisan, Pratt is a Republican in a city that is overwhelmingly dominated by Democratic voters and elected officials.
A poll by the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, had Pratt running in third place behind Bass and Raman.
The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted May 19-24 had Bass with 26% support, Raman with 25% support and Pratt with 22% support, with a 3% margin of error.
Los Angeles voters have become accustomed to seeing election results change as late-arriving ballots are tabulated. In the 2022 mayoral primary, real estate developer Rick Caruso led the pack for about a week before Bass pulled ahead.
Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for Caruso, according to a Times analysis of precinct-level returns provided by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder on Wednesday, when an estimated 62% of the projected vote had been counted. Raman, by comparison, made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.
Pratt, whose Pacific Palisades fire home burned in the January 2025 fire, was strong there and on the Westside, as well as in the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino, Woodland Hills, Chatsworth and Sunland-Tujunga.
Raman dominated precincts known for their progressive politics, particularly those with younger people in renter-heavy neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Highland Park, including her home base of Silver Lake.
Mail-in ballots with an election day postmark will be continue to be accepted by county election officials through Tuesday.
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