Emotional Moment: LA Mayoral Candidate Overwhelmed by Election Results

Nithya Raman, a progressive candidate in the Los Angeles mayoral race, found herself overwhelmed with emotion as early results indicated she had slipped to a distant third place. Despite the setback, Raman took to the stage on Tuesday night, tearfully acknowledging her children and emphasizing that her campaign was dedicated to creating a city they could be proud of.

While Raman attempted to remain optimistic about the outcome, noting that many ballots had yet to be tallied, the reality saw her trailing behind current Mayor Karen Bass and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt. Once a leading contender, Raman’s campaign suffered a decline as she championed progressive policies, such as higher taxes, preserving Los Angeles’ ‘Sanctuary City’ status, and opposing restrictions on homeless encampments near schools.

As of Wednesday morning, with 63.1 percent of the votes counted, Bass held a lead with 34.8 percent, followed by Pratt at 30.4 percent, and Raman at 22.3 percent. The race is now set to proceed to a runoff election in November between the top two candidates, as none reached the necessary 50 percent threshold to secure an outright win. This ensures Bass’s position in the upcoming runoff, where she will compete against Pratt for the mayoral seat.

The councilwoman was a front-runner early in the race, but her support nosedived as she campaigned on a raft of woke policies, including raising taxes, maintaining Los Angeles’ ‘Sanctuary City’ status, and opposing bans on homeless encampments near schools. 

With 63.1 percent of the vote counted on Wednesday morning, Bass leads with 34.8 percent, as Pratt registered 30.4 percent support and Raman trailed at 22.3 percent. 

It will now head to a runoff between the top two candidates in November, as no candidate can reach 50 percent, and Bass’s total was enough to secure her place. 

Raman would need a significant surge in late mail-in ballots to surpass Pratt and join the next election, a fate that she appeared to acknowledge as she grew emotional in front of her supporters on Tuesday night. 

She thanked her two young children and said she had ‘been a candidate for something as long as you can remember.’

‘I hope you know, that everything every person in this room is fighting for in this campaign, has been about building a city that is worthy of you, and every child in this city.’ 

While Raman sits in third place and is more than 40,000 votes behind at the time of writing, the final results could still change due to California’s widespread use of mail-in ballots, as many Democratic-leaning votes are expected to come in.

As Pratt maintained second place, he sent an opening shot at Bass in anticipation of their run-off election campaign over the summer. 

‘She knows it’s on,’ Pratt told reporters Tuesday night outside the Mexican restaurant where he was throwing a private election watch party.

‘I hope she’s ready. I literally could not be more excited.’

He said he was ‘confident’ he could win over Bass’s supporters – however, he faces an uphill climb in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one and are likely to coalesce around the incumbent.

The former star of The Hills was initially seen as a long-shot candidate when he launched his campaign in January, but Pratt gained traction in the home stretch thanks to a media blitz and a breakout debate against Bass and Raman. 

In his remarks on Tuesday night, Pratt challenged Bass to meet him again on the debate stage, saying: ‘We can do debates every Friday if she would like.’ 

Pratt won praise for his brash campaign style, focusing much of his ire on Bass and her tenure as mayor since 2022. 

He has repeatedly accused her of mismanaging the city’s response to the Palisades Wildfires in January last year, including claiming in their live TV debate that she ‘burned my house down.’ 

Pratt has also vowed to crack down on Los Angeles’ widespread social decay, and recently unveiled plans to implement a three-week ‘grace period’ to warn criminals, drug users and homeless people to leave the city before he takes action. 

He promised voters that if he were elected, there would be ‘no more nakedness, no more drug use, no more robbing, no worse, no more dog abuse’, and suggested that his mayoralty would begin with a brief reprieve for criminals to leave the city to avoid jail. 

He says that his team will then go around and warn everyone that: ‘You got three more weeks of this, clock’s ticking.’

Pratt appeared to believe he had done enough to secure a place in the run-off election on Tuesday night, as he gave a triumphant message and said he was looking forward to battling Bass over the summer. 

I’m an Angeleno who said, ‘Enough is enough,’ and I had to step up,’ he said. ‘I’m going to show everybody that I’m their mayor.’

Pratt upended the LA mayor’s race when he entered the contest in January. A registered Republican, the reality TV star mounted a vengeance campaign against incumbent Mayor Bass, whom he holds responsible for his $3 million home burning down

In remarks after coming out on top on Tuesday night, Bass warned that she believes Pratt is too inexperienced to lead the city. 

‘I don’t think he has a clue,’ the incumbent mayor told KABC. 

Bass also appeared to acknowledge that difficulties during her tenure gave Pratt a window to launch his campaign, saying that he’d been ‘tapping into the anger and frustration that people have.’ 

The mayor followed Pratt in saying she would focus her next term as mayor on LA’s homelessness crisis, saying she had begun constructing affordable housing units and introducing public safety initiatives.

‘We can have the city that we know we all deserve,’ she said Tuesday as the results rolled in. 

‘We’re going to build a city where parents and kids do not have to navigate tents because in the nation’s second-largest city, there should never be anybody that is sleeping on our streets. 

‘We are a city that can deal with this, and we have been doing it, and we are going to continue.’