The LA mayor’s race between challenger Nithya Raman and incumbent Karen Bass remained deadlocked early Wednesday, with only about 4,000 votes separating the two candidates four hours after polls closed. According to figures released at midnight in Los Angeles, Bass held a narrow lead over Raman with roughly 600,000 ballots counted and an estimated 580,000 still outstanding.
The margin is far too small to be meaningful given the volume of uncounted ballots, and the timeline for a result is equally uncertain. Mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day will still be accepted and tallied over the coming week, meaning the contest could remain unresolved for days.
A Long Count Ahead
Neither candidate is a stranger to prolonged vote counts. Raman experienced a similar situation just last June, when she initially trailed rival Spencer Pratt in the primary race for the second spot behind Bass. She gradually narrowed the gap and ultimately secured the position a week later.
Bass has also weathered a tight contest before. Four years ago, her race against Rick Caruso was similarly close, and she went on to win by nearly ten points. That count took three weeks to finalize.
The extended timeline is not unusual for Los Angeles elections, where the processing of mail-in ballots can stretch well beyond election night. With hundreds of thousands of votes still to be counted, the current numbers offer little indication of the eventual outcome.
Ideological Contrast Within the Party
Both candidates are Democrats, though Raman occupies a position to the left of Bass. The source notes that Raman is not as far left as her would-be New York counterpart, Zohran Mamdani. Despite their differences, both Bass and Raman have made pledges to support the film industry — a stance that, as the source observes, would be difficult to avoid for anyone running for mayor of Los Angeles at this moment.
The contest has been hard-fought, with months of exchanges between the two camps and vigorous efforts to mobilize supporters. The closeness of the result reflects the intensity of that competition.
Not the Closest Race of the Night
While the Los Angeles mayor’s race is tight, it is not the narrowest contest of the evening. That distinction belongs to the Mississippi Senate race between Scott Colom and Cindy Hyde-Smith, where Colom leads by just 28 votes with nearly a million ballots counted.
The LA mayor’s race remains part of a broader midterm election landscape, with several close contests still unresolved. For now, both Bass and Raman are left waiting as election officials continue the painstaking process of counting remaining ballots.
The outcome will not be known until the count is complete, and both candidates have indicated they will see the process through. With the margin as slim as it is and so many votes outstanding, the race is likely to remain in flux for some time.
