Raman closes in on Pratt as more votes in L.A. mayor's race are tallied

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt on Saturday, as his lead slimmed to just a single percentage point, according to the most recent results released by the county Saturday.Pratt fell to just over 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly over 26%, according to the results from the L.A.County Registrar-Recorder.

Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.“We’ve seen Nithya Raman catching up on every update and the last two in particular she’s accelerated,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc.“She’s continued to gain at a rate that means she will eventually catch up unless Pratt starts getting some ballots coming in that are either geographically or demographically better for him.”Democratic consultant Michael Trujillo, who doesn’t represent anyone in the mayoral race, said the results suggest Raman will surpass Pratt as more votes are counted.

“I think it’s over,” Trujillo said.“It appears Nithya will be in the runoff.

Pratt doesn’t appear to be growing much more than what the Trump base vote was and we’ll probably get an update tomorrow showing that.” The second-place finisher in the mayoral primary will face Mayor Karen Bass in a Nov.3 runoff.

On election night Tuesday, the Associated Press determined that Bass had secured enough votes to qualify for the runoff.Pratt has been in second place since then, but Raman has gradually eroded his lead as mail-in ballots have been counted.The updated vote tally released Thursday showed Pratt with 29% of the vote and Raman with 23%.

With Friday’s update, Raman’s share had risen to 25% and Pratt’s shrank to 28%, for a 3 percentage point gap.In the most recent batch of mail-in ballots counted, Raman received 23,514 votes, while Pratt gained 10,336.Election analys...