Bass holds lead in new L.A. mayoral poll, with Pratt and Raman neck and neck for runoff position

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass continues to hold the lead among likely voters in her bid for reelection, but not by a big enough margin to avoid a likely runoff with either Spencer Pratt or Nithya Raman, who are battling for second position, a new poll found.The latest poll comes just three weeks before the June 2 primary, in which the top two vote-getters will advance to a Nov.3 runoff unless a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.Bass jumped to 30% support in the poll released Wednesday by Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics, up 10 points from the last poll conducted by the same group released in March.

The new poll of 350 likely voters was conducted on May 9-10 — after a televised debate among Bass, Pratt and Raman — and has a margin of error of 5%.Pratt, the former reality TV star whose home burned in last year’s Palisades fire, is now at 22% support, gaining 12 points from the last poll.

Raman, a Los Angeles City Council member and former Bass ally, was in third at 20%, up 10 points from March and within the 5% margin of error with Pratt.“It’s really up for grabs who will be in the second spot,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.Tech entrepreneur Adam Miller was favored by about 7% and community organizer Rae Huang by roughly 4%.The poll showed a sharp reduction in undecided Angelenos as the primary closes in.

More than 50% of voters were undecided in March when Emerson’s last poll was released.Now, that number has dwindled to just 16%.

But those 16% of undecided voters could play a big role in the outcome.When undecided voters were asked who they would vote for if they had to make a choice, Raman leapfrogged Pratt — though by less than a percentage point, the poll found.

Factoring in which way undecided voters were leaning, Bass would lead at 35%, Raman would follow at 23.3% and Pratt would garner 22.9%....