LOS ANGELES — Nearly a week after polls closed, Los Angeles still has no idea who will face off against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in a November runoff. That has led to loud accusations that the fix is in — and the victim this time is reality TV star and upstart candidate Spencer Pratt.
Claims, however, that the vote is rigged overlook key realities on the ground, including California’s prolonged vote-counting process, late-arriving mail ballots, questions about Pratt’s qualifications for office, as well as a seeming focus on national media in the closing stages of the campaign, as opposed to the grassroots.
Pratt, who is a Republican, built an unusually visible campaign fueled by celebrity, the social media echo chamber, effective campaign videos, and overall frustration with City Hall. National media outlets flocked to cover his unlikely bid to lead the U.S.’s second-largest city. Pratt’s supporters were highly visible, vocal, and convinced he represented a political movement larger than traditional polling suggested.
When the first votes were reported on election night last Tuesday, it appeared they might be right. While Bass quickly emerged as the leading vote-getter, Pratt was running ahead of Democratic Councilwoman Nithya Raman.
Then more ballots were counted.
As mail-in ballots continued to be processed in the days after the election, Raman overtook Pratt. Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Six days after election day, the race remained too close to call. As of Monday afternoon, with roughly 83% of ballots counted, Raman held 27.1% of the vote to Pratt’s 26.7%, according to the Associated Press, around a 3,000-vote advantage.
The shifting margins have prompted allegations of voter fraud from high-profile critics of California’s election system, including President Donald Trump.
“The Dumocrats are at it again!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”
Another source of confusion stemmed from a vote update displayed on election trackers used by several news organizations. At one point, the update appeared to show Bass and Raman gaining tens of thousands of votes while Pratt’s total remained unchanged.
Screenshots of the update quickly spread online, prompting allegations of election rigging. Some users pointed to statistical models, arguing it would be highly unlikely for a candidate running near the top of the field to receive no votes from a ballot batch of that size.
What those posts often omitted was that the apparent discrepancy resulted from how the data were displayed. Roughly a minute later, a subsequent update showed a large increase in Pratt’s vote total, with no corresponding change for Bass or Raman.
Los Angeles County’s official election data show that no ballot batch excluded votes for any major candidate. Rather than reflecting an actual vote dump, the snapshots captured incomplete moments in a rapidly updating results feed.
Other social media users pointed to statistical analyses and artificial intelligence tools to argue that Raman’s late surge was unusual, though they presented no proof of wrongdoing.
“ChatGPT can’t find a single example of a 3rd place candidate surging, days AFTER Election Day, to overtake 2nd place,” posted conservative activist Robby Starbuck. “It couldn’t find 1 example in all of American history. That’s what’s happening with Nithya Raman & Spencer Pratt. Los Angeles has 3rd world country elections.”
‘Rigged’ versus reality
But Kaivan Shroff, a media and culture expert, said there was no proof that the changing vote totals reflected anything other than California’s normal ballot-counting process.
“Did Spencer Pratt get a rough deal? No, I don’t think so,” Shroff told the Washington Examiner. “This is politics. He lost by the math. There was integrity behind these elections. Of course, it’s really unproductive and dangerous, but it’s also predictable at this point that the losers in the system make claims that things were rigged.”
The movement in vote totals was not unique to the Los Angeles mayoral or gubernatorial races. California has long been known for its slow ballot-counting process, and races across the state, from Orange County congressional contests to local elections, have often shifted as mail ballots are processed in the days and weeks after election day.
Shroff, however, said some responsibility for the confusion falls on California election officials and political leaders.
“As much as the California system is designed to be as inclusive as possible and allow the most people to vote, they don’t seem to have done an appropriate job educating the public on the process so that people can expect these sorts of changes and fluctuations,” he said. “Insiders and political commentators are aware of that dynamic, and we’ve been talking about it since election night. But I think it’s incumbent on leaders to make sure people have faith in the system and trust in the system, especially when it’s at such a low point across the country.”
Jeff Le, managing principal at 100 Mile Strategies and a former deputy Cabinet secretary to former California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, said Raman benefited from entering the race at a moment when Bass was facing low approval ratings, and voters were expressing broader frustration with incumbents.
He noted that Raman appeared well-positioned to capture progressive voters in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 3 to 1. As Californians continued to cast and return mail ballots throughout May, both Raman and Pratt gained support, but polling suggested Raman had a clearer path to consolidating anti-Bass voters.
A late-May UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, conducted in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, showed Raman running just 1 point behind Bass and ahead of Pratt, a sign that later-counted ballots from more progressive neighborhoods could reshape the race.
Le described the dynamic as a possible “red mirage,” in which early returns made Pratt appear stronger before mail ballots shifted the standings.
Unabashedly blue LA would favor Bass in a Pratt November matchup
Similar to Pratt, Raman tapped into voter frustration over wildfire recovery efforts and homelessness. But in a city that remains overwhelmingly Democrat-led and deeply opposed to Trump, Le said Raman positioned herself as the stronger alternative to Bass, leaving Pratt as a secondary choice for many dissatisfied voters.
California-based political expert Collier Rhode told the Washington Examiner that Democrats would likely have preferred facing Pratt in a general election because of Los Angeles’s overwhelming Democratic tilt.
“If Mayor Bass wanted to perpetrate a conspiracy, it would be to get Spencer Pratt on the November ballot, and then beat him handily since Los Angeles is such a strong Democratic city,” he said. “Having Nithya Raman in the race makes her life so much harder leading up to the general election.”
Interviews with voters across Los Angeles suggested other explanations for Pratt’s possible struggles.
Pratt suitability to get the job done
Many residents said they appreciated his advocacy on issues ranging from wildfire recovery to animal welfare, but they ultimately concluded that running Los Angeles required a level of experience and administrative expertise that Pratt lacked.
The distinction was particularly evident in Pacific Palisades, where residents are still navigating the aftermath of the devastating 2025 wildfire, and rebuilding has been slow.
For many voters there, the election was less about ideology than management: Who could cut through bureaucracy, rebuild damaged neighborhoods, coordinate emergency response efforts, and oversee a city confronting homelessness, housing affordability challenges, public safety concerns, and budget pressures?
While Pratt successfully tapped into frustration with local government, convincing voters he was prepared to run it proved more difficult.
At Gladstones Malibu, an iconic restaurant perched along the Pacific Coast Highway, at least six staff members lost their homes in the Palisades Fire.
The restaurant, which opened in 1981, suffered extensive damage, with toxic smoke permeating the main dining room, which remains closed. It could have been much worse had it not been for two firefighters who happened to be driving by in a pickup truck. Their actions are commemorated every day on the menu with a $15 dessert, the Station 23 Lava Cake, created “to honor the fire station that saved our restaurant from the devastation of the Palisades Fire.”
Employee Jenette Timko said the fire touched nearly everyone she knows in the area, but she still wasn’t convinced Pratt was the right person to lead Los Angeles.
She wasn’t entirely sold on Bass, either.
“I think this country has forgotten that what makes us great is combining ideas,” she told the Washington Examiner. “I really love what Spencer Pratt is saying about the animals and what he’s doing for the animals, but there’s also a lot of things that he’s saying that I don’t like. There are also a lot of things Karen Bass did that make no sense to us out here.”
Timko wasn’t alone.
Kevin Kim, whose home was completely destroyed in the Palisades Fire, acknowledged that Pratt had become a vocal advocate fire victims but said he lacked the experience necessary to lead the nation’s second-largest city.
“You don’t jump from reality TV to selling crystals to mayor of Los Angeles,” Kim told the Washington Examiner. “We have serious problems, and he has not proven he has what it takes to run anything effectively. This is our lives. I appreciate the passion, but he’s not fit to run the city.”
In Century City, a Los Angeles neighborhood, Veronica Hernandez said she and her father, Victor, planned to hold their noses and vote for Raman.
“There’s just no way I can vote for Spencer Pratt,” she told the Washington Examiner.
Hernandez said homelessness and the rising cost of living also prevented her from voting for Bass.
“Raman is the least offensive candidate,” she said, adding, “She’s not perfect, but I can’t vote for someone who I don’t think is serious or someone who I believe contributed to a lot of the problems here. [Bass] smiles all the time. What’s she smiling about? The city is falling apart on your watch. Stop smiling.”
To be sure, there are plenty of Pratt supporters.
Marie Palmer, who attended a May 31 event wearing a custom blue “Pratt for Los Angeles” T-shirt, said she is tired of watching the city decline.
“It’s sad to see what it’s turned into,” she told the Washington Examiner. “And the people that are running it right now don’t care about LA. If they did, it wouldn’t be the way it is, and I believe that this man, Spencer Pratt, will make a difference in LA. He’ll change it.”
Danielle Klepper, another attendee, said she has followed Pratt’s campaign since he entered the race and praised his evolution as a candidate.
“I’m excited to see what he’s been doing and the changes that he wants to make in the city,” she said. “It’s incredible. Everything that he stands for, and just standing up for what he believes in.”
SPENCER PRATT FALLS BEHIND NITHYA RAMAN IN LA MAYORAL RACE AFTER LATEST VOTE UPDATE
Pratt, for his part, has urged his supporters to remain patient as ballots continue to be counted, although he has leaned into the theories percolating online.
“Folks, we’re dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference, there’s still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next 3 weeks to count!” he wrote on X. “Let’s git-r-dun!”