Nithya Raman overtakes Spencer Pratt in L.A. mayor’s race
LOS ANGELES (NBC, KYMA) - As election officials continue to count votes in California, Nithya Raman, a progressive council woman, has taken over second place bumping former reality TV star, Trump-backed Spencer Pratt, into third.
Current Mayor Karen bass is expected to face the top vote-getter between these two candidates in the general election.
She had been eating into his lead ever since election night, with the L.A. County Registrar's Office slowly processing and then counting millions of mail-in ballots, and with Sunday's number drop, Raman has overtaken Pratt in the race for the coveted second place finish for a runoff spot against Mayor Bass.
Raman, in a statement, wrote, "We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of angelenos who have powered this campaign."
But the development is sure to outrage many supporters of Pratt, the former reality show star who has received national attention for his renegade campaign, which has included the support of President Donald Trump, who, perhaps not coincidentally, called the vote count a "fraud," and was so incensed, he stormed out of his interview with NBC's Kristen Welker.
In a post on X, Pratt appeared to try and link the swing of 43,000 votes over the past week to one estimate of the homeless population in the city.
When asked if he will accept the results if he either won or lost, Pratt said, "I do have multiple law firms here to make sure its audited properly…but of course I will accept my winning number."
A runoff position for Raman would alter the fall strategy considerably, with the incumbent mayor becoming the conservative in the race against a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Bass spokesperson Alex Stack released a statement saying, "We look forward to winning a contest against an opponent who allows encampments near schools and fights against hiring more cops, yet is MIA on saving Hollywood jobs and fighting back when ICE invades L.A."
"Bass and her advisers believe they know how to run against Pratt. They will use the same playbook against a conservative that they used against Rick Caruso four years ago," said Dan Schnur, Professor of Political Communication at USC. "But if Raman does continue to pick up steam and end up in that second place finish, Bass has a more complicated and difficult challenge ahead of her
Meanwhile in the race for governor, Republican Steve Hilton remains in the second spot behind Democrat Xavier Becerra.
Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer is slowly gaining ground, but Hilton says he's confident that he'll be in the runoff in November.
When asked if he is alleging any fraud after President Trump said there's fraud taking place, Hilton said, "We've got team looking at it. We have lawyers standing by. And so far, we haven't seen anything that suggests we should move in that direction, no."
