Nithya Raman, a progressive candidate in the Los Angeles mayoral race, was moved to tears as preliminary election results showed her in a distant third place.
On Tuesday night, Raman became emotional on stage while expressing gratitude to her children. She emphasized that her campaign was dedicated to creating a city they could be proud of.
Despite trying to remain optimistic as many votes were still uncounted, Raman found herself trailing behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt.
Initially a strong contender, Raman’s support waned as she advocated for progressive policies such as tax increases, upholding Los Angeles’ status as a ‘Sanctuary City,’ and opposing restrictions on homeless encampments near schools.
As of Wednesday morning, with 63.1 percent of the votes tallied, Bass was leading with 34.8 percent, followed by Pratt with 30.4 percent, while Raman was at 22.3 percent.
The election will now head to a run-off between the top two candidates in November as no candidate can reach 50 percent, and Bass’s total was enough to secure her place in the run-off election.
Raman would need a significant surge in late mail-in ballots to surpass Pratt and join the run-off, a fate that she appeared to acknowledge as she grew emotional in front of her supporters on Tuesday night.
She broke down in tears as 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.’
Woke Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman burst into tears as she thanked her family while early results showed she fell into a distant third place in the race
Raman grew emotional as she tried to put a positive spin on results even as they showed her dipping into third place in the LA mayoral race
While Raman sits in third place and is over 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 ex-The Hills star was initially seen as a longshot 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 on every Friday if she would like.’
Spencer Pratt sent an opening warning shot to Bass as he said he believed he had done enough to face her in the run-off, saying, ‘She knows its on’
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addressed supporters early in the night after it became apparent that she had secured her place in a runoff in November
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 2025, including claiming in their live TV debate that she ‘burned my house down.’
Pratt has also vowed to crack down on LA’s 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 is 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 will 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.’
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt upended the LA mayor’s race when he entered the contest in January. A registered Republican, Pratt mounted a vengeance campaign against incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass, who 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,’ Bass told KABC.
The incumbent mayor 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.’
Bass followed Pratt in saying she would focus her next term as mayor on LA’s homelessness crisis, saying she had began 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.’
