Nithya Raman Passes Spencer Pratt as Mayor Vote Count Becomes ‘Hills’-level Drama

The Spencer Show might get canceled.

Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman has fully closed the gap on her mayoral rival Spencer Pratt, picking up a net gain of about 32,6000 votes in several fresh tranches of primary ballots released starting Friday. The new total on Sunday night pulled the progressive Democrat ahead of Pratt with 197,000 votes, or 27.1 percent, 3,000 ahead of her upstart rival, who has 26.7 percent of the vote count. About 150,000 votes are still outstanding, which made the race to close to call according to the Associated Press.

The new total Sunday evening marked the first time Raman sat ahead of Pratt since counting began last Tuesday. Incumbent mayor Bass has already been projected as advancing from the primary with 35 percent of the vote.

The candidates have performed in a way that embodies their entertainment pedigrees. Reality-star Pratt made a noisy debut out of the gate when more than half the votes were counted the night of the primary; he even told reporters, “she knows it’s on” about a runoff with Bass.

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But Raman — whose husband is  veteran 30 Rock writer and producer Vali Chandrasekaran — has quietly subverted her showy target in a way befitting that series. What had been a 10-point lead on Election Night for Pratt consolidated to seven points on Wednesday, six on Thursday, three on Friday, one on Saturday and a lead on Sunday as more votes are counted. If Raman holds that lead — and given that later-arriving ballots are believed to favor liberal voters — Raman will oust her rival. The total vote count currently sits at 83 percent.

That outcome would amount to a surprising end to what had been a rocket-ship campaign for the 42-year-old gadfly. Written off as a novelty just a few months ago, Pratt surged into contention with some savvy — and persistent — trolling of Bass, distributing memes that attacked the mayor as out-of-touch and capitalizing on resentment for her handling of the January 2025 wildfires and the city’s homelessness crisis. For her part, Raman for months was not even in the race, but jumped in because she saw an opportunity for a progressive lane vs the right-leaning Pratt and embattled record of the moderate Bass. 

If she were to finish in the second spot to challenge Bass, it would flip November’s election from a referendum in part on Pratt’s outsider appeal to a more policy-oriented one of whether Bass’s moderate approach or Raman’s activist-government philosophy are best suited to the problems facing Los Angeles. A Raman win in November would also give L.A. a progressive mayor to mirror New York’s Zohran Mamdani. 

Meanwhile, the California governor’s race appeared to gain one entrant for the general election, with the Associated Press on Friday calling Democrat Xavier Becerra a certainty to finish in the top two spots of Tuesday’s primary. Becerra passed leader Steve Hilton Friday with a new tranche and continued to widen his lead over the weekend; he currently sits 90,000 votes, or 1.3 percent, ahead of Hilton with 1,880,0000 votes in total. Hilton’s lead over progressive Tom Steyer for the all-important second spot has remained roughly constant at about 300,000 votes, or between 4% and 5%. About 72% of the votes have been counted.

Becerra would become the first Latino governor in California’s history.