Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman pulled ahead of former reality TV star Spencer Pratt on Sunday to claim second place in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, updated results show, reshaping the race to challenge incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in November and raising questions about how Raman overtook Pratt so late in the count.
For context, NBC News had already projected on election night that Bass would advance to the November runoff, leaving only one real suspense: which challenger would join her. In the first days after polls closed, early returns put Pratt ahead of Raman, creating the prospect of a one-time MTV personality facing the sitting mayor of the United States' second-largest city. That script is now in danger of being torn up.
With 83.2% of the expected vote counted, Bass remains well out in front. According to figures released Sunday afternoon by the Los Angeles County Registrar‑Recorder/County Clerk, the Democratic incumbent had 250,871 votes, or 34.68%. Raman stood in second with 27.12%, while Pratt trailed in third on 26.69%, a gap of just 3,113 votes.
That margin is thin, but the direction of travel is hard to ignore. For several days after election night, Raman was stuck in third place behind Pratt. Her campaign's fortunes shifted on Friday, when she received roughly twice as many votes as Pratt in that batch of late‑counted ballots, according to the updated tallies. On Saturday, she cut his lead again, closing to around 7,500 votes behind. By Sunday's update, she had edged past him.
How Nithya Raman Pulled Ahead Of Spencer Pratt As Late Ballots Landed
The news came after several rounds of post‑election updates that often favour candidates whose base votes by mail, drops ballots off late or clusters in precincts that take longer to tabulate. Raman, a progressive and the first South Asian woman elected to LA City Hall, appears to be benefiting from exactly that kind of late‑breaking support.
In a statement to NBC Los Angeles on Sunday, Raman said, 'We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign.' It was a measured note for a candidate who has just taken second place from a rival who had been leading for days.
Pratt's camp, by contrast, has been quieter in official channels. NBCLA reported that his campaign did not respond to a request for comment after Sunday's results update. The former The Hills star did, however, speak to his followers on social media, using X to draw a comparison between Raman's post‑election night vote gains and the number of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles each night.
On Instagram, he urged supporters not to panic, writing on Monday that the current difference is 'a fraction of a percentage point' and that 'there's still hundreds of thousands of vote outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next 3 week to count! Let's git‑r‑dun!'
"A net swing of more than 43,000 votes since Tuesday.."
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) June 8, 2026
43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before...?
Probably nothing. 🤷 https://t.co/W2E3k6PHyR pic.twitter.com/ZfzHCy9enb
The Registrar's office confirmed that 122,807 ballots were added in Sunday's update, bringing the total processed to 1,897,653. That figure represents 32.21% of registered voters in Los Angeles County, with more than 368,000 ballots still uncounted. Under California law, county election officials have 30 days from election day to complete and certify the results, which means this steady drip of updates will continue for a while yet.
What Raman's Surge Could Mean For Bass And The Runoff
Although NBC News has not yet projected who will face Bass in November, the mayor's team is already behaving as if the decision has been made. Following Sunday's numbers, Bass' campaign issued a statement referring to Raman as the mayor's 'general election opponent'.
Campaign spokesperson Alex Stack went on the attack, 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 LA.' It was a preview of a likely general‑election theme: present Raman as too far to the left on homelessness and public safety, and inattentive to core economic concerns.
UPDATE: Statement from @MayorOfLA’s team. “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 LA.” — Alex Stack, campaign…
— Matthew Seedorff (@MattSeedorff) June 8, 2026
That framing would have been very different if Pratt had held onto second place. Dan Schnur, a political communication professor at the University of Southern California, the University of California, Berkeley and Pepperdine University, told NBCLA that a Raman runoff would force Bass to rethink her playbook. 'Bass and her advisors believe that they know how to run against Pratt,' Schnur said. 'They'll run the same campaign playbook against a conservative that they did against Rick Caruso four years ago.'
Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer running as a centrist Democrat, lost to Bass in 2022 after a high‑profile and expensive campaign that focused on crime, homelessness and the city's direction. A showdown with Raman, whose politics sit to Bass' left, would be a different conversation, particularly for voters who feel the city has not moved fast enough on encampments or housing, and for those who think Bass is already too cautious.
For now, the only confirmed figures are on the spreadsheet. Bass leads. Raman has moved into second. Pratt is still close enough that a late surge of remaining ballots could flip the order again, even if that appears less likely with each update. The picture remains provisional until the final count is completed and certified.
