Mayor Karen Bass ran the table in South Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt found strong support from his Westside base, and Nithya Raman racked up votes in Echo Park and other neighborhoods with a concentration of renters, according to a Times analysis of partial precinct-level results from this week’s primary election.
The Times analysis, based on an estimated 62% of the ballots counted so far, found that Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for mayoral candidate Rick Caruso in 2022, while Raman made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.
Bass found support in neighborhoods along much of the Harbor and Santa Monica freeway corridors, along with central San Fernando Valley communities from Van Nuys to Arleta.
With much of the vote left to be counted, a map prepared by The Times showing how neighborhoods voted represents a snapshot of an election still very much underway. Bass garnered enough votes on election night to qualify for a Nov. 3 runoff, the Associated Press determined, but votes are still being tallied and it’s not yet clear if she will face Pratt or Raman.
Early returns show Pratt with a significant lead over Raman, but some analysts expect the remaining ballots to lean Democratic, as many left-of-center voters held onto their mail-in ballots until the last minute as they waited to choose between Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
Not surprisingly, Pratt did well in the Pacific Palisades, where his home burned down in the 2025 fire, garnering 60% in one precinct. The next closest candidate there was Adam Miller at 14%.
A registered Republican, Pratt also led in many of the more conservative neighborhoods that were dominated in the 2022 mayoral primary by Caruso, a former Republican who switched to being a Democrat before running for mayor. Pratt was ahead in much of the Westside and the West Valley, the analysis found, including much of Woodland Hills, Encino, West Hills and Chatsworth — just like Caruso four years ago.
“The Pratt vote mirrors a tremendous amount of the Rick Caruso vote: geographically, demographically and ideologically,” said Dave Jacobson, a Democratic consultant and co-founder of J&Z Strategies.
Certain Valley neighborhoods that supported Caruso didn’t go to Pratt, though, as Bass made inroads in areas including Northridge and North Hills, extending her support farther west into the Valley than she did in her last primary.
At the same time, Pratt appeared poised to win some neighborhoods that Bass carried in 2022. He was leading in Studio City and Hancock Park, according to the preliminary returns in areas where Bass led Caruso after the primary.
Bass’ stronghold in South L.A.
Bass’ support eroded to some extent since 2022, when she secured 43% of the vote in the primary against Caruso, then-Councilmember Kevin de Leon and leftist Gina Viola, the analysis based on partial returns shows. Even so, Bass outperformed her 2022 primary results in many areas south of the Santa Monica Freeway, though the precincts are slightly different than they were four years ago, making direct comparisons difficult.
In one precinct in Gramercy Park, Bass picked up 82% of the vote so far — up from a similar precinct where she won about 75% of the vote in 2022. Part of Bass’ dominance in the area could have to do with the fact that Pratt and Raman didn’t perform as well as Caruso did in many of these South L.A. neighborhoods.
Still, in some parts of the neighborhood, Bass underperformed 2022, though she still won more than half the vote.
In a Baldwin Hills neighborhood precinct where she won 77% of the vote last time, Bass was down to about 64% this year so far, as Raman took 20% of the precinct and Pratt had 9%. In 2022, Caruso won less than 13% of the area.
Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic consultant, said it was unsurprising to see Bass’ support continue to be strong in South L.A.
“She’s been in the community there, lived there a long time and represented them in various capacities,” he said. “She’s a pretty well-known figure. She’s tied into all the networks.”
The Raman factor
The partial election returns show Raman leading the pack in precincts known for their progressive politics, particularly those with younger people in renter-heavy neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Highland Park.
Every neighborhood that Raman won was taken by Bass during the primary in 2022, though Viola, a leftist candidate that year, also did well in these precincts compared with other parts of the city.
On the Westside, Raman found few spots to lead, taking Sawtelle and Palms by fairly narrow margins, although those margins could possibly increase as more votes are counted.
She also dominated the Westwood precinct that includes UCLA, winning 56% of the vote in one precinct, compared with Bass’ 19% and Pratt’s 10%. And in a Los Feliz precinct in her council district, Raman so far has 58% of the vote, far ahead of Bass and Pratt.
Still, as of Wednesday, Raman was trailing in 54 of the 66 precincts in her own council district.
Zachary Donnini, a data expert with the nonpartisan group VoteHub, said he expects to see Raman’s numbers rise as the county continues to count late-arriving mail-in ballots, which he says tend to skew younger and more Democratic — which is Raman’s base.
“All the areas that are good for Pratt are going to become less good for him, and all areas that look less good for Raman are going to look better for her,” Donnini said.
Too close to call
Across the city, certain battleground precincts were so tight that no single candidate had a lead as of Wednesday’s count, on which The Times’ analysis was based.
In two adjacent Koreatown precincts, Bass and Raman were tied, with 117 votes in one and 187 votes in another, with Pratt trailing not far behind in both.
Bass and Raman also split a downtown Los Angeles precinct with 199 votes each, though Raman carried much of the rest of downtown, which Bass won in 2022.
In the Valley, it was Bass and Pratt who split precincts. In one Sun Valley precinct, the two each took 151 votes compared with Raman’s 80. They also tied in an Encino precinct.
