LOS ANGELES, CA — City Councilwoman Nithya Raman widened her lead over Mayor Karen Bass early Wednesday morning as votes continued to be counted in the race for Los Angeles mayor, and voting patterns suggest Raman could gain even more ground in the coming days.
Raman had 377,458 votes, or 51.12%, compared with 360,864 votes, or 48.88%, for Bass, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office's latest tally, released at 3:11 a.m.
That put Raman ahead by 16,594 votes, erasing Bass' narrow election-night lead and raising the possibility that the incumbent mayor could be unseated.
The race remains too close to call, however, with potentially hundreds of thousands of ballots still to be counted.
The initial results released early Wednesday included mail-in ballots received and processed before Election Day, along with ballots cast during early in-person voting. Election Day ballots and additional mail-in ballots will continue to be added to the totals.
And there are reasons to believe Raman could benefit from those later ballots, experts say.
Paul Mitchell, head of the polling data firm Political Data Intelligence, told the Los Angeles Times that the first ballots counted tend to come from older, more conservative voters, a group Bass needed to win by large margins.
Recent polling and ballot-return patterns suggest Raman could have an advantage among voters whose ballots have yet to be counted.
An October UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll found Raman leading Bass 69% to 15% among voters ages 18 to 29.
Meanwhile, an analysis of county ballot records by The Basin found that younger voters were returning their ballots substantially later than older voters.
If those trends hold among the remaining ballots, Raman could see her lead grow further. But the composition of the outstanding ballots remains uncertain, and Bass still has a path to victory.
The final turnout won't be known until all ballots are counted, but past elections offer some perspective on how much the race could change.
As of early Wednesday morning, about 2.15 million ballots had been counted countywide, representing 36.34% of registered voters. By comparison, turnout in the 2024 general election was 66.12%.
If turnout reaches a similar level this year, a little more than half of the expected countywide ballots have been counted.
Recent election history also offers a reminder of just how dramatically results can shift in the days after polls close.
In the June primary, Spencer Pratt initially led Raman by more than 40,000 votes and held second place for five days before Raman overtook him as mail-in ballots were counted.
She ultimately finished nearly 30,000 votes ahead of Pratt.
Whether Raman or Bass can make similar gains remains to be seen.
The tight race follows a UC Berkeley IGS poll released in the final week of the campaign that found Bass and Raman tied at 40% support among likely voters, with 19% undecided.
At her election night gathering at the Greek Theatre, Raman struck a hopeful tone, portraying the election as a rejection of the city's political establishment.
"They are angry about a broken status quo and the politicians who failed them over and over again. But change feels good, doesn't it?" Raman told supporters.
Bass, meanwhile, remained upbeat as she addressed supporters in Hollywood Tuesday night, celebrating Democratic victories across the country and reflecting on her four years leading Los Angeles.
"Four years ago, you gave me the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of the city that raised me, the city my parents chose to build a life in, and the city I have spent my entire life fighting for," Bass said. "And every single day, I have carried that responsibility with me."
County election officials are scheduled to release their next tally Wednesday between 4 and 5 p.m. Ballot counting could continue through Nov. 27.
City News Service contributed to this report.
Sign up for free local newsletters and alerts for the
Los Angeles Patch
Patch.com is the nationwide leader in hyperlocal news.
Visit Patch.com to find your town today.