LOS ANGELES, CA — Nithya Raman gained ground on Spencer Pratt once again in the latest vote tally released Friday as the pair battle for second place in the race for mayor.
Mayor Karen Bass' comfortable lead on election night led the Associated Press to conclude on election night that the incumbent had secured her place in the November runoff.
Still to be determined is who will face off against Bass in November — the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office will continue counting ballots for the next two weeks.
The registrar's office released another round of ballot-count results on Friday afternoon, which showed Bass with 34.98% of the vote, Pratt with 28.24% and progressive Councilwoman Nithya Raman with 24.89%.
Pratt's lead for second place shrunk once again in Friday's update, continuing a trend established in previous updates.
Pratt on Friday had a 20,672-vote lead over Raman, down
from 33,076 votes the day before.
The registrar will report additional ballot-count results no more than once daily through June 26 until all ballots are counted, according to the office.
The next count will be released on Saturday between 4 and 5 p.m.
Experts say it's unsurprising that Raman, the left-wing favorite among the three front runners, is performing well in the post-Election Day ballot counts.
The initial counts released on election night and in the early morning hours the following day include ballots submitted in person, as well as mail-in ballots sent in before Election Day.
California law requires mail-in ballots to be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by election officials no later than seven days after Election Day.
Democrats are generally more comfortable voting by mail and there was a push among left-leaning voters in this election to cast ballots later, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Don’t count Nithya Raman out yet,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin told the Times.
Those betting on the election online would seem to agree.
For much of this week, a Bass-Raman runoff has been favored among people betting on the election on sites including Polymarket.
On another platform, Kalshi, traders signaled a loss of faith that Pratt will hold on to the No. 2 spot. The price to bet on Pratt's chances of advancing to the runoff dropped from 82% to 23% on June 1, while Raman's price climbed from 26% to 79%, according to the platform.
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