Nithya Raman posted a gushing victory lap on X thanking "her voters" for sending her to the November runoff.
She lost her own council district on election night.
Now she's taking a bow for a win she didn't have on June 2 – a win she clawed back only after days of late mail-in ballot counting buried Spencer Pratt.
Nithya Raman Conceded on Election Night Then a Federal Investigation Opened
Raman represents District 4 – Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, parts of the San Fernando Valley. These are her people. She's been their councilmember since 2020. She ran for mayor on the promise that she knows this city better than anyone.
On election night, Pratt – a reality TV star with zero political experience – beat her in her own backyard.
The early in-person vote had Raman finishing third citywide at 23%, well behind Pratt's 29%. Her campaign went silent. By all appearances, her mayoral bid was over.
Then the mail-in ballots came in.
Over the following week, batch after batch of late-counted ballots swung almost entirely in Raman's direction. She pulled roughly 46% of newly counted ballots in one critical drop – compared to 34% for Bass and just 20% for Pratt. By Sunday June 7 she had erased Pratt's 41,000-vote election-night lead. By Monday the Associated Press called it: Raman advances.
It wasn't just conservatives on X asking questions.
The US Attorney's office in Los Angeles – led by Bill Essayli – announced it had opened several election fraud investigations into California's vote count and sent a federal prosecutor directly to the county's ballot processing center.
That's a sitting federal prosecutor, appointed by the Trump administration, watching ballots get counted in real time.
The DSA Candidate Who Wants to Run Los Angeles Mayor Race 2026
Raman isn't some moderate challenger trying to nudge Karen Bass toward the center. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America – the same organization that backed Zohran Mamdani in New York City and spent years pushing to defund the Los Angeles Police Department.
The DSA actually censured her in 2024 over a single endorsement dispute – which tells you how far left the goalposts have moved. If the Democratic Socialists think she's too moderate, imagine what she looks like governing the second-largest city in America.
Her pitch is that City Hall has been captured by "powerful interests that fund elections." Bass's campaign advisor fired back immediately: the last thing Los Angeles needs is a politician who "opposed cleaning up homeless encampments and efforts to make our city safer."
That's not a conservative attack ad. That's her fellow Democrat.
California Election Fraud Investigation and the LA Ballot Harvesting Machine
Nobody is alleging that ballots were fabricated. What happened in Los Angeles is legal. That's the problem.
California's mail-in ballot system allows weeks of collection, counting, and processing after election day. Ballot harvesting – third-party operatives collecting and submitting ballots on voters' behalf – is legal under state law. The result is a system where election-night results are meaningless for Democrats who know how to work the machine.
Raman entered the mayor's race less than an hour before the filing deadline. What she had wasn't a traditional ground game – it was a deep network of progressive activists, DSA-aligned organizers, and institutional Democratic infrastructure. Exactly the kind of operation that knows where the late ballots are and how to make sure they get counted.
The voters who showed up in person on June 2 preferred Pratt over Raman in her own district.
The voters whose ballots were collected over the following week handed her the runoff.
Seth Keshel called her a fraud. Gunther Eagleman asked the obvious question: "Didn't you concede on election night?"
Those are the right questions. And for once, the answers might actually come from a federal prosecutor – not Sacramento.
Sources:
- "Nithya Raman Defeats Spencer Pratt for 2nd Spot in LA Mayor Runoff," The Wrap, June 9, 2026.
- Ashley Carnahan, "LA city councilwoman previously backed by DSA running for mayor in primary challenge to former ally Bass," Fox News, February 2026.
- "Raman overtakes Pratt for 2nd in LA mayoral race, results show," NBC Los Angeles, June 7, 2026.
- "California Election 2026: Nithya Raman advances to November runoff for LA mayor," ABC7 Los Angeles, June 9, 2026.
- "Essayli says 'multiple election fraud investigations underway,'" ABC7 Los Angeles, June 6, 2026.
- Sam J., "'Better LAWYER UP': LA's Nithya Raman Absolutely SHREDDED for Thanking 'Her Voters' in Victory Lap," Twitchy, June 9, 2026.
