Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman dramatically widened her lead over reality star Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayor’s race — with the two vying for second place behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
Raman had 28.5% of total votes as of Monday evening, or 229,576 votes — about 22,000 more than Pratt, who had 25.83%, or 207,757 votes.
Bass is leadng the race by a wide margin at 34.3%, or 375,992 total votes.
Pratt issued a rallying cry on X Monday saying his fans shouldn’t lose hope.
“Folks, we’re dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference. There’s still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next three weeks to count!” Pratt said.
“Let’s git-r-dun!” he added.
Pratt was running in second place behind Karen Bass in initial vote counts, but he fell to third place as ballots from more progressive areas of LA were processed.
The slow and chaotic vote count has exposed deep frustrations with California’s elections system, where it can sometimes take weeks to get a final tally of votes.
That’s because California law requires only that ballots be postmarked by election day — meaning the public doesn’t even know the outstanding tally of votes left to be counted until days after the election.
President Donald Trump has called California elections “crooked” and a federal prosecutor was dispatched to the Los Angeles County ballot processing facility on Friday. Trump claimed last week the California primary election was “under investigation” by the US Attorney’s Office.
“California law prioritizes counting every valid ballot, not just the fastest ballots,” a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar told The California Post.