The painstaking task of tallying California’s mail-in ballots has left the political futures of Republicans Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton in suspense.
As of the latest estimates from the Associated Press, about 64 percent of the ballots have been counted in the race for Los Angeles mayor following Tuesday’s election.
Spencer Pratt, known for his reality TV background, is challenging the current Democratic Mayor Karen Bass, motivated in part by the destruction of his $3 million residence in last year’s Palisades fire. Pratt currently trails in second place.
While Mayor Bass is set to move on to the November runoff, the identity of her competitor remains uncertain due to the significant number of uncounted ballots. It’s still a toss-up between Pratt and the progressive city council member, Nithya Raman.
According to the New York Times, Raman held a slight advantage over Pratt in the 60,000 ballots processed on Wednesday and Thursday.
Historically, mail-in voters lean more Democratic than Republican, a factor that could erode Pratt’s narrow 7-point advantage.
Pratt is a registered Republican, but none of the Los Angeles mayoral candidates are listed by political party due to California’s unique rules about jungle primaries.
Meanwhile, in the governor’s race, Hilton remains in the top spot, with an estimated 60 percent of the vote counted.
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican running for Los Angeles mayor, speaks to reporters outside his election night event. Days later, it remains unclear if he’ll make a runoff against incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass
Republican California gubernatorial candidate and former Fox News star Steve Hilton is also playing the waiting game as ballots are counted, with a slight edge over his opponents
Spencer’s wife, Heidi Montag, leaving his watch party at Don Antonio’s in Los Angeles on Tuesday after his successful night in the primary polls
The London-born former Fox News star has a slight edge over the leading Democrat, former health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra, who is about six points ahead of Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer.
Despite this, because of California’s large Democratic population – and the fact that more left-leaning voters appeared to vote by mail and vote by mail later in the election process – the race is still expected to be a nail-biter for Hilton.
Mail-in ballots can be counted as long as they were dropped off by 8pm on Election Day.
Additionally, California has a history of taking days to count all those ballots.
Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden due to the widespread use of mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic, has long pushed for states to do away with that voting method.
Since Election Day, he has claimed that the Democrats are cheating as the count has continued.
‘Watch California, everybody!’ the President posted to Truth Social Thursday night. ‘Our Election process is as bad, or worse, than any Third World Country. The biggest difference is, they count their Votes much faster – They don’t wait seven days to tell you who won, rigging the Election during each and every one of them.’
‘Americans are ashamed of what is happening!’ Trump added.
Montag has not explicitly backed her husband’s campaign on social media
The President used California to push Republican lawmakers to pass the Save America Act, a voting bill that would restrict the use of mail-in ballots and expand voter ID.
Despite Republicans having majorities in both houses, the Save America Act is stuck in the US Senate due to widespread Democratic opposition and several moderate GOP holdouts.
The press office for California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who is term-limited and thus cannot run for reelection, mused on X Thursday: ‘Why do Republicans hate that California counts every vote?’
Hilton has grumbled at the slow pace of the count, calling the process a ‘global laughing stock’ by pointing out that India can tally up 600 million ballots in one day.
‘We’re as confident as ever that we will make the top two,’ he said in an X post Thursday night.
Pratt has reacted to the wait by posting ‘God always wins’ Thursday afternoon.
His wife, reality TV star Heidi Montag, wrote, ‘Never give up, never surrender!’ Friday morning, though it was not entirely clear if she was referring to the LA mayoral election.
Montag has not explicitly backed her husband’s campaign on social media, instead writing cryptic posts and advertising her new music.
The day before, she had posted simply, ‘Croissants are magic.’
