The Los Angeles mayoral primary is on the board, and the early picture is exactly the kind of chaos the LA establishment did not want. Republican outsider Spencer Pratt is running close to Democratic incumbent Karen Bass and progressive City Councilmember Nithya Raman, with all three bunched inside the polling margin of error heading into Election Day. No official vote totals exist yet. As of the early evening check, Los Angeles County’s official results page was still in pre-results mode and listed every mayoral candidate at 0 votes and 0.00%. That is normal. The county does not release anything until the first Election Night bulletin drops. I don't even need to make campaign ads anymore. Karen and Nithya just keep making them for me. pic.twitter.com/Ey724YZv51 — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) May 31, 2026 Here is the setup that has national attention. President Trump has publicly praised Pratt, turning an officially nonpartisan city race into a MAGA-versus-LA-establishment fight. Pratt, a former reality TV figure, is running as an outsider against Bass and Raman. Under California’s top-two system, the two highest vote-getters advance to November unless one candidate clears 50% outright. Nobody is expected to clear 50%. So the real question is which two names survive to the fall. CBS LA put the polling picture in stark terms on Election Day: In what might be her final political campaign for public office, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass looks to secure a second term as her leading opponents, Councilmember Nithya Raman and political newcomer Spencer Pratt, hope to unseat her in June's primary election. In California, only the top two vote-getters, regardless of political affiliation, will advance to the November election unless a single candidate captures more than 50% of the electorate. Leading up to Election Day, the trio appeared deadlocked in a tight battle for voters, with Bass holding a slim 26% lead, Raman close behind at 25% and Pratt at 22%, according to a May 28 UC Berkeley-LA Times poll, which cited a margin of error of around 3%. "I haven't seen a race this close in decades, especially for the city of Los Angeles. Everybody is tied within the margin of error," campaign strategist Luis Alvarado told CBS LA several days before the election. In the two months leading up to the primary, UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs poll found that 40% of likely voters remained undecided, with director Zev Yaroslavsky calling the election "a wide-open race." However, the more recent UC Berkeley-LA Times poll found that a majority of undecided voters have chosen sides, with the undecided share dropping to 10%. A three-point lead with a three-point margin is not a lead. It is a coin flip with three faces. The undecided trend matters too. An earlier UCLA Luskin poll found 40% of likely voters still undecided, while the later UC Berkeley-LA Times poll put the undecided share at 10%. That means most voters had finally picked a side right before the count. In a race this tight, that late movement is the whole ballgame. Now for the part that confuses people watching the official page refresh over and over. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk explained how the results bulletins would roll out: REPORTING ELECTION RESULTS Our commitment to transparency and accountability extends to every facet of the electoral process, and the reporting of results is no exception. It’s important to know that counting ballots and reporting results does not end on Election Night. All Vote by Mail ballots cast by Election Day and received within seven (7) days from Election Day will be accepted, processed, and once verified, counted. All Conditional Voter Registration (same-day registration) and Provisional Ballots cast on Election Day are processed and added to the tally once they are cleared. See the post-Election night results update schedule on the next page. Find Election Results at RESULTS.LAVOTE.GOV. Reporting Results on Election Night First Results8:30pm – 8:45pmVote by Mail ballots cast before Election Day Second Results8:45pm – 9:00pmBallots cast at a Vote Center before Election Day Remaining Results: Ballots cast at a Vote Center on Election Day Process and Timing: When Vote Centers close, Election Workers will complete their closing procedures and then deliver their ballots to Sheriff’s Deputies at a designated Check-in Center. Sheriff’s Deputies then transport ballots from the Check-in Center to the Ballot Processing Center to be processed and counted. All ballots cast at the Vote Center on Election Day will be counted and reported. Once all ballots are counted, we will release the Semi-Final Results. So the first drop is mail ballots cast before Election Day. The second drop is early Vote Center ballots. Election Day in-person ballots land later, after deputies transport them to the processing center. Watch the order. An early mail-heavy lead can shift as same-day ballots and the seven-day mail window get counted. That is why a candidate sitting in third at 9 p.m. is not finished, and a candidate sitting in first is not safe. For Pratt, the math is simple. He does not need to win the first bulletin. He needs to finish in the top two when the count settles. A second-place finish would put a Trump-backed Republican into a November runoff in one of the bluest cities in America. That alone would be a political earthquake for the LA establishment. The official county results page is the place to watch as the bulletins land. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk had the mayoral contest staged this way before the first returns: Statewide Direct Primary ElectionJune 02, 2026 Election StatisticsStatisticCountTotal Registrations5,891,851Total Precincts2,175 Voter TurnoutStatisticCountPercentVoted0.00% Remaining Eligible Voters5,891,851100.00% Ballot DistributionStatisticCountPercentVote by Mail Ballots0.00% Vote Center Ballots0.00% Results as of 05/26/2026 16:54:13. Results are representative of Los Angeles County only. Remember to refresh this page to ensure that you have the latest results. Ballots cast in Vote by Mail precincts are counted in the first bulletin. These tallied Vote by Mail precincts are reflected in the “Precincts Reporting” figure. There are 865 Vote by Mail precincts. The voter registration figure reflects registrations 29 days before the election. Voters who registered after this date will have their vote counted. LOS ANGELES CITY PRIMARY NOMINATING ELECTION Mayor Candidate(s)VotesPercent ADAM MILLER (N)0.00% ANDREJ A. SELIVRA (N)0.00% ANDREW K. KIM (N)0.00% ASAAD ALNAJJAR (N)0.00% BRYANT ACOSTA (N)0.00% JOHN LOGSDON (N)0.00% JUANITA LOPEZ (N)0.00% KAREN RUTH BASS (N)0.00% NELSON CHENG (N)0.00% NITHYA RAMAN (N)0.00% RAE CHEN HUANG (N)0.00% SPENCER PRATT (N)0.00% SUZY KIM (N)0.00% TISH HYMAN (N)0.00% Bottom line for tonight: ignore the first ten minutes of noise, watch whether Pratt holds the top-two line as different ballot types come in, and remember that LA counting runs for days, not hours. If Spencer Pratt is still standing in second when the dust settles, the story stops being a poll and starts being a runoff.