Los Angeles Mayor Race Remains Deadlocked as Vote Count Continues

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held a razor-thin advantage over challenger Nithya Raman on Tuesday night, with fewer than 10,000 votes separating the two candidates. Political veterans cautioned that the closely fought mayoral race could remain unresolved for days—or even weeks.

By 10 p.m., Bass had received 50.86% of the vote, or 292,876 ballots. Raman had 49.14%, totaling 282,935 votes. The difference stood at 9,941 votes among the 575,811 ballots counted so far.

Veteran pollster John McLaughlin and longtime political consultant Rick Taylor told The California Post that thousands of ballots remained to be processed, making it possible that voters will not have a clearer sense of the outcome until at least Friday.

“If there is one thing we can predict, it’s that we won’t know what the outcome of the elections will be until the earliest Friday,” Taylor told The Post.

Los Angeles County’s counting schedule calls for the next update at 4 p.m. Wednesday, followed by reports at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day thereafter. Election workers are processing ballots around the clock.

The results are not scheduled to be certified until Nov. 27.

Despite the uncertainty, Bass projected confidence at her election-night gathering at the Loews Hotel. Addressing supporters around 9:45 p.m., she urged patience while ballots continued to be counted and sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his immigration crackdown and deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles.

“Our city stood together,” Bass said.

Still, the embattled incumbent did not formally declare victory.

“As we are waiting for the votes to be counted, there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty,” Bass told the crowd. “I have never been more proud of our city.”

“Pretty soon we should know,” she added. “We will achieve victory.”

Raman likewise called for patience as the count continued Tuesday night.

“There are still a lot of ballots to count, and we’re gonna let that count finish,” Raman told supporters. “I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. I’m very hopeful.”

Although Raman stopped short of claiming victory, she celebrated the campaign she had built and framed her challenge to Bass as part of a broader movement for change.

“Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change, too,” Raman said.

“But this campaign refused to accept that. You refused to accept that. You saw hopelessness, and you chose hope,” she told supporters.

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The suspense followed a sharp increase in countywide voting. By 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, about 1.9 million ballots had been cast, including 1.5 million by mail and nearly 400,000 in person, according to Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan.

The figure represented roughly 32% of registered voters, surpassing the 28% turnout Logan reported in the 2022 gubernatorial election.

“People are getting out and voting, and they’re returning their ballots,” McLaughlin, whose firm conducted The Post’s October mayoral survey, told The Post. “It says that the issues are important and people are involved.”

Yet the central question remains which candidate’s supporters turned out—and whose ballots have not been counted.

Taylor told The Post that the number of ballots returned by Latino voters in Los Angeles rose from about 117,000 on Monday to 167,000 on Tuesday. Older voters made up a significant portion of that increase, a pattern he said could favor Bass.

Voters under 30, an important part of Raman’s coalition, had not produced a similar late surge.

“Not in LA. It’s funny. LA, it hasn’t popped yet,” Taylor told The Post, warning that ballots dropped off late Tuesday could take several days to enter the count.

Both campaigns now face an extended wait, with late-arriving mail ballots, provisional votes and ballots requiring additional verification still capable of changing the standings.

Under California law, mail ballots postmarked by Election Day may be counted if they arrive within seven days, potentially prolonging the uncertainty well beyond Friday.

The race will determine the direction of a city confronting 45,194 homeless residents, a shrinking police force and escalating housing costs as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Olympics.

The Post’s October poll highlighted widespread dissatisfaction with City Hall: 66.2% of likely voters said Los Angeles was moving in the wrong direction, while only 25.5% approved of Bass’s job performance.

Bass campaigned on protecting her signature Inside Safe homelessness initiative, rebuilding the Los Angeles Police Department to 9,500 officers ahead of the Olympics and continuing the city’s efforts to address its housing crisis.

Raman called for greater accountability in homelessness spending and pledged to replace LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell before 2030. Her repeated votes against restrictions on homeless encampments, along with her connections to the Democratic Socialists of America, became central flashpoints in the bruising campaign.

Political analyst Dan Schnur, who teaches at USC and UC Berkeley, told The Post that Bass and Raman presented voters with sharply contrasting visions for Los Angeles—a divide reflected in the exceptionally close results.

“The two candidates seem to have been running for mayor of two entirely different cities of Los Angeles,” Schnur said.

“They’re talking to different voters, they’re prioritizing different goals, and they’re thinking about the city’s future in two entirely different ways.”