Exclusive | Mayor Karen Bass and Nithya Raman in dead heat as voters face face excruciating wait in LA mayoral race
Karen Bass and Nithya Raman were locked in a dead heat in the Los Angeles mayoral race — as political veterans warned the race could drag on for days or even weeks.As of 10 p.m.Tuesday, Bass had 50.86% of the vote to Raman’s 49.14%, with just 9,941 votes separating the two out of the 575,811 counted.Veteran pollster John McLaughlin and longtime political consultant Rick Taylor told the California Post that the tight margin with thousands of ballots still to be processed could leave Angelenos waiting several days for a clearer picture of who will lead America’s second-largest city.“If there is one thing we can predict, it’s that we won’t know what the outcome of the elections will be until the earliest Friday,” Taylor told The Post, warning that it could take several weeks to count mail-in ballots.“It’s how the system is set up.”The county’s ballot-counting schedule calls for updates at 4 p.m.
Wednesday after the elections followed by 9 a.m.and 4 p.m.
updates each day after, with election workers processing ballots around the clock.Final results are not scheduled to be certified until Nov.27.Despite the uncertainty, Bass struck a confident tone at her election-night party at the Loews Hotel on Tuesday night, rallying supporters around 9:45 p.m.
and urging patience as ballots continued to be counted.She also took aim at President Trump, blasting his immigration crackdown and deployment of federal troops into Los Angeles.“Our city stood together,” Bass said.But the embattled incumbent stopped short of claiming victory.“As we are waiting for the votes to be counted, there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty,” Bass told supporters.
“I have never been more proud of our city.”“Pretty soon we should know,” she added.“We will achieve victory.”The nail-biting contest followed a surge in countywide voting, with roughly 1.9 million ballots cast by 1:15 p.m.
Tuesday, including 1.5 million by mail and nearly 400,000 i...