NEED TO KNOW

• Nithya Raman has pulled ahead of Spencer Pratt by under a point for the LA mayoral runoff's second slot.
• The lead materialized only as late mail ballots were counted, days after election night.
• California's count is legitimate and routine — and its own governor says the delay breeds suspicion.

LOS ANGELES, CA (TDR) — City Councilmember Nithya Raman has overtaken former reality-TV star Spencer Pratt for second place in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, reversing his election-night lead as late ballots are counted.

DSA-backed Nithya Raman has surged into second place in the LA mayoral race after days of vote counting, passing Spencer Pratt.President Trump looked visibly frustrated during an NBC interview when California’s elections came up.Why? Because this isn’t just about California.… pic.twitter.com/tSp9DZ2uIm

— GRANDPA’s FREE ADVICE (@GOP_is_Gutless) June 8, 2026

The big picture: Mayor Karen Bass already advanced to the November runoff. The remaining fight is for the second slot opposite her, and it flipped only after days of tabulation. Pratt led on election night; by the weekend, Raman had pulled ahead. Nothing irregular happened. That is precisely what makes the moment combustible.

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• Raman leads with roughly 27.1% to Pratt's 26.7%, about 3,000 votes, with 83% counted.
• Days earlier, Pratt held a near-6% advantage before the margin eroded.

Why it matters: A reversal driven entirely by legitimate late ballots is the exact pattern that primes voters to suspect the result, regardless of party.

• California mails a ballot to all 23 million registered voters and counts those postmarked by Election Day arriving within seven days.
• Counties have up to 30 days to finish; final results are due July 3.
• Roughly 463,000 ballots remained uncounted as the lead changed hands.

Driving the news: The shift played out as a national fight over the pace of the count.

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• President Trump said his DOJ was investigating the delay, posting "Why the vote counting DELAY???"
• Pratt, watching his lead shrink, posted a meme of a man straining to make sense of the count.

What they're saying: Election experts and the state's own leadership frame the slowness as both lawful and a liability.

• Paul Mitchell, Political Data Inc. — "It looks like it takes forever because it does."
• Gov. Gavin Newsom urged counties to count every lawful ballot quickly, warning that the gap lets disinformation spread.
• A CNN analysis noted Democratic voters returned ballots more slowly, explaining the late progressive surge.

Yes, but: Both halves of the distrust fight are standing on something real, and neither will say so.

• The count is legitimate. Late-counted ballots are not fraud, and a lead that grows as they are tallied is a documented pattern, not a heist.
• Yet a system that takes weeks and routinely reverses election-night leads is, by its own governor's admission, an opacity problem the state has chosen and underfunded — handing bad-faith actors a real grievance to exploit.

Between the lines: The uncomfortable truth neither side states is that "legitimate" and "trust-eroding" are not opposites here. A process can be entirely lawful and still be designed in a way that manufactures suspicion every cycle. The fraud claims are unsupported — but the impulse behind them is fed by a genuine feature of California's system, not invented from nothing. Defending the count's integrity and defending its current design are two different arguments, and conflating them is how both tribes talk past each other.

What's next:

• Watch whether Raman's lead holds or widens as remaining ballots are processed toward the July 3 deadline.
• Track whether the DOJ delay probe produces anything beyond the posted complaint.
• Monitor legislative proposals to fund faster counting ahead of November.

If a vote count is both completely legitimate and predictably breeds distrust every cycle, whose job is it to fix the part that isn't the fraud?

Sources

This report was compiled using reporting from ABC News, KTLA, NBC Los Angeles, CBS News, Variety, PBS NewsHour, CNN, and CalMatters.

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