LOS ANGELES (AP) — Days after California’s primary, Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt are still waiting to see who makes the November runoff for Los Angeles mayor against incumbent Karen Bass.
The race was still too early to call on Sunday as the vote tally showed Raman moving into second place behind Bass for the first time since Tuesday, when voting ended and the count began. That puts Raman, a progressive city council member, ahead of Pratt, a former reality television personality from “The Hills.”
Raman had been running in third, but she has gained more votes than Pratt with every update provided by election officials in Los Angeles since Tuesday.
Vote counting in California is a notoriously slow process because state law practically mandates a drawn-out tally. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter and they are counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.
Los Angeles, like other counties in California, processes and counts mail ballots in roughly the order they are received, so the last ones returned are the last ones counted.
On Tuesday night after polls closed, Los Angeles released results from mail ballots that had been returned early and already processed as well as votes cast that day. Since then, the county has been processing and releasing results from mail ballots that arrived later.
Election data shows that large numbers of Democrats held onto their mail ballots and returned them in the race’s final days, which helps explain why Bass and Raman have been doing better than Pratt in the votes counted since primary day.
The mayor’s race is nonpartisan, so none of the candidates had party identification next to their names on the ballot. Raman and Bass are both Democrats, while Pratt is a Republican.
On election night, Bass held a 4.4 percentage point lead over Pratt, who in turn had an 8.1-point lead over Raman. Since then, Bass’ lead over Pratt has grown to nearly 8 points while Raman now leads Pratt by about 0.4 points, or 3,100 votes. The Associated Press estimates there are a little less than 150,000 ballots left to be counted.
The slow count has prompted claims of fraud, without providing evidence, from some Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who said his Department of Justice would investigate.
The president suggested that the state’s Democrats were somehow cheating so that two candidates he favors — Pratt and Republican Steve Hilton in the governor’s race — would be bumped from the top two slots and therefore be ineligible for the November general election. Democrat Xavier Becerra has advanced to the general election in the governor’s race but The AP has not yet called the second slot. Hilton leads Democrat Tom Steyer by 4.3 points in the race to advance to the general election as the second-place candidate, though his lead has been nearly cut in half since election night.
The general election in Los Angeles is likely to be a referendum on Bass’s leadership regardless of whether she faces Raman or Pratt. But the two would come at the campaign from very different directions.
Pratt, a conservative, would mount a more aggressive challenge to liberal governance in the city dominated by Democrats. He has made reducing homelessness a key part of his campaign, and he’s sharply criticized Bass’s leadership during the January 2025 wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that destroyed his home and thousands of others. His candidacy had drawn outsized attention because of his celebrity, but it’s unclear if the buzz will translate into enough votes to make the runoff.
Raman, meanwhile, is taking on Bass from the left. She has promised to speed up housing construction, bring back entertainment industry jobs and improve services in a city known for dirty streets and buckled pavement. She was elected to the council with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America, though the group did not make a formal endorsement in the mayor’s race. Her last-minute candidacy was a surprise after she endorsed Bass for reelection earlier.
Ohlemacher reported from Washington.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/William Liang)
Spencer Pratt, a candidate in the Los Angeles mayoral race, fields interviews during an election night event Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman talks to reporters after a campaign event in Los Angeles, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Rob Sand rallied a crowd for the first time as the official Democratic nominee for Iowa governor on Sunday, kicking off a countdown to November with the support of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
The race for governor between Sand and Republican Zach Lahn stands to be one of the most competitive in the country as Iowans face a state budget deficit, struggling agricultural economy and cancer crisis. Democrats are putting faith in him to blaze a trail in the state after struggling electorally in recent cycles, hoping his message of unity will resonate with their fellow Iowans.
A few hundred people in Des Moines roared, waved campaign signs and snapped photos as Sand took the stage, a state flag hanging behind him.
“You might think we have a big hill to climb. I've seen bigger,” Sand said. “We're building a coalition of — not red versus blue — but of the well-fed versus the fed-up.”
Sand, who was unopposed on the primary ballot, learned who his opponent would be after Tuesday’s primary settled an unpredictable five-way Republican contest.
The rally was the first one that Tracy Schloss has ever attended. A lifelong Democrat, Schloss said he doesn't like the state's direction after nearly a decade of total Republican control, saying the leaders have “lost sight of the common people.”
“It's time, you gotta step up or the country will still keep going the way it's going," said the 62-year-old retiree from Ankeny, a suburb of Des Moines.
Schloss said he thinks Sand is a “bright spot" who can get voters excited, and he's more optimistic than he's been in recent years that the election will be a success for Democrats.
Iowa has open races for both governor and U.S. senator for the first time since 1968, plus three battleground congressional races. National attention on the state has soared in recent months, drawing President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to Iowa.
Democrats still have a 200,000-person deficit in statewide voter registration, and they are outnumbered in every House district. Sand, along with Senate candidate Josh Turek, say they can win over independents and Republicans who are frustrated with party politics and a Republican trifecta in Washington and Des Moines that they blame for the state's challenges.
Turek will face U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who already has portrayed Turek as a liberal puppet for party leader Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Lahn has also rejected Sand's nonpartisan pitch.
“Rob Sand is not a moderate,” Lahn said in his victory speech Tuesday. “He’s a liberal career politician pretending to be someone he’s not.”
As he has during campaign events over the past year, Sand asked attendees to sing the first verse of “America the Beautiful.” And when he introduced himself, he talked about his upbringing hunting, fishing and going to church.
Even if Sand is elected governor in November, he will likely have to work with Republican majorities in the state House and Senate, which recently passed bills to restrict the executive’s power that outgoing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law.
Sand said it's good to have balance rather than a political system centered around amassing power and punishing political enemies.
“We have found ourselves in this position because we have too many people who want us to only think about red or blue,” Sand said Sunday. “Red and blue are colors.”
Neither Sand nor Lahn use their party's traditional blue or red in campaign materials, opting instead for green. They both say they aren’t beholden to their party establishments and that Iowans want a new direction, though Lahn’s Republican Party has held a statehouse trifecta for nearly a decade.
Little known before his bid for governor, Lahn made a splash as a business owner criticizing farm consolidation and tax breaks for corporate giants, a regenerative farmer who subscribes to Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement and a former political operative who galvanized Iowa’s conservative grassroots.
Sand’s campaign has given about $750,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party already this cycle, funding that Republicans call hypocritical for a candidate who claims he is not a party man. The Sand campaign says that sum reflects his investment in a state party-run coordinated campaign that will help him get elected as governor, even as it also supports candidates up and down the ballot.
“Rob Sand loves to talk about rising above the ‘two-party system’ — right up until it’s time to campaign, cash checks, and share the stage with Democrat Party insiders," Iowa Republican spokeswoman Jade Cichy said in a statement Sunday.
Beshear, chair of the Democratic Governors Association and a potential presidential candidate in 2028, told a cheering crowd Sunday that he's “all in” for electing Sand.
As Democrats continue to debate what went wrong in 2024 and the direction of the party, Beshear has offered up his own example as the leader of a red state for lessons on how the party can go forward.
“I am living, breathing proof that Democrats can win anywhere, and we should be fighting everywhere,” Beshear told the crowd Sunday.
In addition to rallying with Sand, Beshear also attended a “Beers with Beshear” fundraiser for congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, who wants to unseat Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in the competitive House district that includes Des Moines. Beshear told The Associated Press that he would see Turek, too.
The Democratic Governors Association, which Beshear chairs, gave the Iowa Democratic Party about $140,000 so far this cycle, according to filing reports.
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand speaks during a campaign rally, Sunday, June 7, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand poses for a photo with supporters during a campaign rally, Sunday, June 7, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear poses for a photos during a campaign rally for Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, Sunday, June 7, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand speaks during a campaign rally, Sunday, June 7, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, left, greets Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear during a campaign rally, Sunday, June 7, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Iowa democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand speaks to media after voting on primary Election Day, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Bryon Houlgrave)
