Indian American council member Nithya Raman got ahead of reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayoral race, reaching the second spot, after an updated vote count on Sunday evening.
Raman won about 40% of the nearly 48,000 votes in Los Angeles County, winning 10,000 votes more than Pratt and leaving her about 3,000 votes ahead. A CNN report said it would not be projecting which of the two will join Mayor Karen Bass in the November election, because of the narrow margin.
Raman, who campaigned as a progressive, is the first South Asian councilwoman at LA City Hall. For several days after election night early results showed her in third place behind Pratt. She inched closer on Friday, when she received twice as many votes as Pratt, a registered Republican. This gap was narrowed further on Saturday.
READ: Khanna advances as Tandon surprises in primary (June 3, 2026)
“We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign,” Raman said in a statement to NBC Los Angeles on Sunday.
While it has been projected that Mayor Karen Bass will advance to the November runoff, the question of who she will face in the general election remains. With 83.2% of the expected vote in, the Democratic incumbent maintained her lead with 250,871 votes, or 34.68%, according to the updated vote tally released by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk on Sunday afternoon.
Paul Mitchell, vice president of the voter data firm Political Data Inc., drew comparisons with the 2022 mayoral election, in which Bass trailed Rick Caruso on election night but gradually overtook him to win.
“It is consistent logically with what we saw in 2022,” Mitchell said. “Every update has benefited Raman to varying degrees.”
READ: Ro Khanna calls for ‘Second New Deal’ (May 18, 2026)
Analysts say Pratt, a registered Republican, likely appealed to conservative voters, many of whom were expected to have cast their votes early. Raman, by comparison, is a progressive democratic socialist. Analysts say younger, progressive voters tend to hold onto their ballots longer than conservatives.
Raman recently outlined a comprehensive plan to bolster local film and television production and reverse the trend of projects leaving the region.
Raman, who was born in Kerala, had moved to the U.S. at age 6. After earning degrees from Harvard and MIT, she returned to India to work on urban poverty and environmental issues in Chennai and Delhi before settling in Los Angeles.