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LA mayor race: Bass will face Raman in November. Pratt is out
City Councilmember Nithya Raman passed Spencer Pratt in the primary contest for LA mayor after vote returns counted Sunday.
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Myung J. Chun
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman gained enough votes Monday to secure a spot in the November general election, according to the Associated Press. That pushes reality TV personality Spencer Pratt out of the runoff.
Raman, an L.A. City Council member, will face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November.
"Now our fight for a healthier, safer, more affordable, and more joyful Los Angeles continues," Raman said in a statement Monday. "If you’re as frustrated by the broken status quo as I am, I hope you’ll join our movement to build a city that works for everyone."
The Associated Press called one runoff spot for Bass last week.
Votes are still being counted, and the L.A. County Registrar of Voters will receive ballots postmarked by Election Day up until seven days later.
How the count developed
On election night, Pratt had collected enough votes to put him squarely in the second spot, with a significant lead over Raman.
But by late Friday, Raman had gone from just over 20% of the vote on election night to about 25%. Meanwhile, Pratt lost a couple of percentage points since Tuesday night's early returns. Thursday's release put Raman at 24.89% to Pratt's 28.24%.
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And by Sunday, Raman passed Pratt with 27.12% of the votes to Pratt's 26.69%. By Monday evening, Raman led by more than 20,000 votes and nearly three percentage points.
It's a development some election watchers predicted.
“I think she has a shot at catching Pratt, but I think it's a long shot,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, last week. “It requires her to get a large percentage of the votes that remain to be counted.”
Raman, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was likely to benefit from the later vote tally, Yaroslavsky said.
“The later votes tend to be more Democratic and more progressive and that inures to her benefit,” Yaroslavsky said.
(Note: Katy Yaroslavsky, his daughter-in-law, is far out in front in her reelection bid for CD5.)
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As mail-in ballots are added to vote totals, some races are narrowing. Here's the latest on Measure ER, L.A. City Council District 9 and others.
What's next?
L.A. County election officials said they plan to release new vote count results every day until June 12, and regular updates until June 26.
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