What looked like a comfortable path to the November runoff for former reality television star Spencer Pratt is suddenly turning into a nail-biter, and the reason is one that has become increasingly familiar in California politics: ballots that continue arriving and being counted long after Election Day.
Nearly a week after Los Angeles voters cast their ballots, Socialist Democrat Nithya Raman has staged a remarkable comeback and now appears to have a realistic shot at overtaking Pratt for the second spot in November’s mayoral runoff.
When polls closed on Election Day, the race didn’t seem particularly close.
Pratt held 30.1 percent of the vote, while Raman sat at just 20.2 percent. The ten-point advantage appeared substantial, especially given the amount of attention Pratt had generated throughout the campaign with his relentless criticism of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
But then the ballot drops started arriving.
Raman needed to beat Pratt by 8.7 points in the remaining vote today. Instead, she won this drop by 22.5 points, and it was a large batch.
That puts Nithya Raman on track to join Karen Bass in a November runoff between two Democrats. https://t.co/9YF7JCEjIW
— Zachary Donnini (@ZacharyDonnini) June 7, 2026
As additional votes were counted over the following days, Pratt’s lead steadily shrank. First it dropped to seven points. Then it narrowed to four. By Saturday night, with roughly 78 percent of ballots counted, the gap had nearly disappeared entirely.
According to the Associated Press, Bass remained in first place with 34.6 percent of the vote. Pratt held second at 27.3 percent. Raman was right behind him at 26.2 percent.
A race that once looked comfortably settled suddenly became one of the most closely watched contests in the country.
Election analysts say the trend favors Raman.
VoteHub head of data science Zachary Donnini pointed to one of the latest ballot batches as evidence that momentum has shifted dramatically.
“Raman needed to beat Pratt by 8.7 points in the remaining vote today,” Donnini wrote on X. “Instead, she won this drop by 22.5 points, and it was a large batch.”
Media strategist Eric Seufert highlighted another late batch consisting of nearly 60,000 ballots. According to his analysis, Raman captured 39 percent of those votes, compared to 34 percent for Bass and just 18 percent for Pratt.
It was the first major ballot release in which Raman finished ahead of both opponents.
If that trend continues, Los Angeles could be headed toward an all-Democrat runoff featuring Bass and Raman.
That possibility carries significant political implications.
Raman has become one of the city’s most prominent progressive voices since joining the City Council. She has frequently aligned herself with activist causes and has been a leading figure on homelessness policy. She notably opposed an ordinance backed by Bass that targeted a notorious homeless encampment despite repeated public safety concerns in the area. The measure ultimately passed overwhelmingly, with Raman casting one of only a handful of dissenting votes.
Pratt, meanwhile, built his campaign around attacking Bass’s leadership, particularly her handling of the devastating Palisades Fire that destroyed thousands of homes, including his own.
Ironically, Pratt may have spent too much time focusing on Bass and not enough time paying attention to Raman.
Just days before the election, he dismissed her candidacy during a Fox News appearance.
“She’s so irrelevant I think we should just focus on Bass,” Pratt said.
Those comments have not aged particularly well.
Now the candidate he largely ignored appears poised to potentially knock him out of the race altogether.
If Raman ultimately advances and then defeats Bass in November, Los Angeles would follow a pattern that has emerged in several of America’s largest cities. New York elected Zohran Mamdani after he defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Chicago chose Brandon Johnson over the more moderate Paul Vallas.
Los Angeles could become the latest major city where voters bypass a traditional Democrat in favor of a candidate further to the left.
For now, however, the immediate question remains unanswered.
Will Spencer Pratt survive the remaining ballot count?
A week ago, that seemed like a silly question.
Today, it may be the only question that matters in Los Angeles politics.
