Socialist Democrat Nithya Raman is surging toward a November runoff spot in the Los Angeles mayoral race following multiple late-breaking ballot dumps — despite trailing Republican Spencer Pratt by ten points on Election Day.
With 78% of ballots counted as of Saturday night, the Los Angeles city councilwoman sits just one percentage point behind Pratt in the race for second place, according to The Associated Press. Incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass leads with 34.6%, Pratt has 27.3%, and Raman has 26.2%.
The momentum shift has been dramatic.
On election night, Pratt secured 46% of the counted vote with a commanding ten-point lead over Raman — 30.1% to her 20.2%, AP reported. Hours later, that gap shrank to seven points. By Thursday, with 71% counted, Pratt led the socialist by only four points.
“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.”
VoteHub head of data science Zachary Donnini wrote late Saturday on X that Raman’s performance in the latest ballot drop puts her on track to advance.
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
Media strategist Eric Seufert wrote on X that Friday night’s drop of just under 60,000 ballots split 39% for Raman, 34% for Bass, and only 18% for Pratt — “the largest outside of the initial election-night drop” and “the first in which Raman took the largest share.”
Raman chairs the Council of the District of Columbia’s Housing and Homelessness Committee and led opposition to an ordinance supported by Bass that would have cleaned out a homeless encampment in an area where citizens have witnessed murders. The ordinance passed overwhelmingly, with Raman casting one of four dissenting votes.
Pratt, who starred in the 2000s MTV reality series “The Hills,” lost his home in the Palisades Fire in January 2025. Bass’s response to the devastating fire was widely panned across the political spectrum.
In the final days before the race, Pratt appears to have underestimated Raman’s support by focusing his energy on Bass. During a May 28 appearance on Fox News, he called Raman “irrelevant,” citing her falling support in prediction markets.
“After the debate [on] the betting apps she went from 65% to— I think she’s at 5%. She’s so irrelevant I think we should just focus on Bass,” Pratt said on “Fox & Friends.”
Due to Los Angeles’s strong Democratic lean, Pratt would be a heavy underdog against Bass if he manages to make the runoff. A head-to-head matchup between Bass and Raman would likely be harder to predict, with both candidates being Democrats.
If Raman edges out Pratt and unseats Bass in November, Los Angeles would join New York City and Chicago in choosing an avowed leftist mayor over a more moderate Democrat. In 2025, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani defeated former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo in both the primary and general elections. Two years earlier, left-leaning Mayor Brandon Johnson bested the more moderate Paul Vallas in Chicago’s mayoral election.
