Nithya Raman moved further ahead of Karen Bass on Wednesday afternoon, widening her lead in the Los Angeles mayoral race to about 52% to 48% as more ballots were counted. She was up by more than 25,000 votes after starting election night slightly behind.
Raman had told supporters at the Greek Theatre plaza on Tuesday night to keep calm while the count was still in flux, saying she was hopeful and, at the same time, superstitious. Bass was projecting confidence across town at the L.A. County Democratic Party’s watch party at the Loews Hollywood Hotel, where she said the city would soon know the result and that she was confident victory would come her way.
By early Wednesday morning, the race had already flipped, giving Raman a slight edge. By Wednesday afternoon, that edge had grown by another percentage point, a swing that matters because the vote count has not finished and the lead is moving in only one direction.
The shift echoes what happened in the June 2 primary, when Raman was also behind on election night before overtaking Spencer Pratt five days later. In this race, the same pattern is taking shape again: polls had shown Raman favored by younger voters, who tend to cast ballots later, while Bass had campaigned on a public safety message and entered election night sounding certain she would prevail.
That certainty now sits beside a count that keeps moving against her. Lindsey Horvath and Estevan Montemayor were already speaking as if the outcome had been decided, but the final arithmetic still matters more than the celebration. Raman’s lead is growing, yet the remaining ballots are what will settle whether the same late count that lifted her in the primary is enough to make her the next mayor.
