From City News Service
LOS ANGELES — Incumbent Karen Bass and City Councilwoman Nithya Raman launched their respective campaigns for Los Angeles mayor June 9, with the two all but assured of facing off in the November general election.
Bass met with supporters for a news conference downtown, where the mayor said she “won” the primary and will again win in November. The mayor touted the fact that she received the most votes as of the latest vote tally, leading the field of 14 candidates with 34.32% of the vote.
“It’s hard for me to express how much it means to me to have all of you here, to feel your embrace, to feel your power, and to feel your encouragement because we’re going to have four more years,” Bass said.
Bass also took the opportunity to criticize Raman.
“This November, voters will have a clear choice between myself and Nithya Raman, a difference that is made crystal clear because we have been changing L.A. While some people, including the councilwoman, have fought to take L.A. backwards, are for the status quo,” Bass added.
Bass touted what she called her accomplishments in addressing homelessness and encampments, approving policies to streamline the production of housing units, and addressing public safety.
“We have a long way to go, but after decades of homelessness increasing in LA, we changed the direction and brought it down two years in a row — that has never been done before,” Bass said. “But while I’m fighting for change by moving people indoors from encampments, Nithya Raman votes repeatedly to allow encampments near schools.”
While Raman did not have an in-person event June 9, her campaign posted a 23-second video on social media.
“A few months ago, this campaign was a long shot, but what we did have was a vision for Los Angeles, a place where working people can build a future. That is the vision that we have for Los Angeles,” Raman said in the video.
The councilwoman declared victory June 8 in the battle for second place over former television reality personality Spencer Pratt.
Pratt initially held a solid lead over Raman, but as the vote-counting continued from the June 2 primary, the city councilwoman steadily gained ground, finally overtaking Pratt June 7.
That voting update showed Raman with a roughly 3,000-vote lead, but the June 8 update vote tally showed Raman’s lead over Pratt ballooning to 21,819 votes. By the next day, her lead expanded to 29,368 votes, or 3.47%.
According to the latest tally released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, Raman had 245,490 votes, or 28.98%, with Pratt trailing behind at 216,122 votes, or 25.51%.
“For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections. Meanwhile, working people pay the price in higher rents, depleted services, and a city that has stopped working for them,” Raman said in a statement. “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.”
On June 8, Pratt was taking a positive stance.
“Folks, we’re dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference,” Pratt wrote on X, prior to the release of updated vote totals. “There’s still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and L.A. officials have given us the next three weeks to count! Let’s git-r-dun!”
Voting results typically take longer in California than in other states, as officials process a large number of mail-in ballots, which can be received as many as seven days after the election.
The Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office said final results of the June 2 mayor’s race will be certified June 26, with daily vote updates throughout this week. County elections officials must submit their final results to the Secretary of State by July 3.
The Secretary of State is scheduled to certify the election results by July 10.
According to the county, roughly 23,000 ballots countywide remain to be tallied from last week’s election. It was unknown how many of those ballots are from the city of Los Angeles.
The length of the counting process has led to widespread criticism — including from President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly accused California Democrats of rigging the election, despite offering no evidence to support his claim. Trump walked out of an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” last weekend after he was questioned about his claims of election fraud.
Trump renewed his criticism on social media June 8 writing, “Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections! Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials.”
The initial tally of votes released June 2 election showed Pratt with a lead of more than 40,000 votes over Raman. But Raman has steadily gained ground as daily updates on the count are released. The majority of ballots still being counted are primarily those sent by mail or submitted in drop boxes close to or on election day. Those ballots are generally believed to skew toward Democrats, since Democrat voters are more likely to mail their ballots.
Ballots can be received as long as a week after the election, as long as they were postmarked by June 2.
But allegations of fraud have persisted from Republican circles. Pratt himself posted a message on X June 7, noting the 43,000-vote swing in the election returns — and noting that 43,000 is also roughly the official number of homeless people in the city.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has also questioned the length of the vote-counting process in California, and called on the state to dispatch workers to counties to expedite the process.
Hilton held a news conference June 9 outside the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office in Norwalk calling for improvements in California’s voting system.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli confirmed June 5 that his office has “multiple” probes underway into alleged voting fraud in the state, although he declined to provide any specifics. He noted a recent criminal case filed against a woman accused of paying homeless people on Skid Row to register to vote.
He also said the state was “blocking” a federal audit of its voter rolls.
Essayli urged anyone who may have witnessed potential election fraud to email tips to CAEkectionFraudTips@usdoj.gov.
The Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office confirmed to City News Service that an official from the U.S. Attorney’s Office inspected the main county vote-processing center June 5.
