Prospects have dimmed for Spencer Pratt, Los Angeles

Since Election Day on Tuesday, Los Angeles County has begun the long, slow process of counting late-arriving and provisional ballots.And the race for second place in the mayor’s contest is moving in a direction that should concern Spencer Pratt supporters, and anyone who thinks Los Angeles needs to move toward a more centrist, common-sense course.Friday afternoon’s update added roughly 140,000 ballots countywide, with about 42.7% from within the city of Los Angeles.Mayor Karen Bass remains firmly in first place with 34.98% of the vote.The real drama is the battle for the second runoff spot between Pratt and City Councilwoman Nithya Raman.And the latest numbers were a major win for Raman.Going into this update, my estimate was that Raman needed to outperform Pratt by roughly 11 percentage points in the remaining vote to have a realistic chance of catching him.Instead, she did much better than that.Raman gained 23,115 votes in Friday’s update, compared to 10,711 for Pratt and 20,419 for Bass.

In a single ballot drop, Raman netted 12,404 votes on Pratt.Put another way, she received more than twice as many votes as Pratt in this batch.The updated totals now stand at 215,868 votes for Bass, 174,260 for Pratt, and 153,588 for Raman.Pratt still holds second place, but his lead over Raman has been cut to just 20,672 votes.With observers estimating that 550,000 to 600,000 ballots may still remain countywide, there are likely well over 200,000 mayoral votes left to count.California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.

Please provide a valid email.By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Never miss a story That is more than enough for Raman to make up the difference if she keeps posting numbers like Friday’s.The remaining vote appears to be behaving as many California election veterans expected.Late-counted ballots have historically tended to be you...