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 wept on stage on Tuesday night as she paid tribute to her children, saying her dwindling campaign had been about building a city that is worthy of them.
Emotional Speech Amidst Poor Results
While Raman tried to put a positive spin on results as many ballots were yet to be counted, she had already dipped into third place behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and reality TV star Spencer Pratt. With 63.1 percent of votes counted on Wednesday morning, Bass leads with 34.8 percent of the vote, while Pratt registered 30.4 percent support and Raman trailed at 22.3 percent. The election will now head to a run-off between the top two candidates in November, as no candidate reached 50 percent. 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, saying 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,' she said.
Pratt's Rise and Challenge to Bass
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, but 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.'
Pratt's Campaign Platform
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.'
Bass Responds to Pratt's Challenge
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 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.'
