The Los Angeles mayoral race remained too close to call Tuesday night, with incumbent Karen Bass narrowly ahead of City Councilmember Nithya Raman as vote counting continued. Neither candidate had been declared the winner.
At 10:48 p.m. PT, the Los Angeles County Register-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office reported that Bass had 50.7% of the votes counted and Raman had 49.3%. Nearly 500,000 votes had been tallied, leaving a margin of roughly 10,000 votes. The report said a final count could take at least several days.
The results included mail-in ballots, with about half of the expected vote accounted for at that point. Raman’s supporters could gain ground as Election Day ballots are counted, the report noted, because younger Angelenos who form part of her core base tend to vote in person on Election Day.
Bass and Raman, former allies competing for many of the same voters, had been polling closely in the final weeks. Bass said she was confident of victory, while both candidates held events with supporters as they awaited further results.
The campaign also featured debate over the city’s film and television industry. Both candidates have said they want to make production in Los Angeles easier and more affordable, and both support a bipartisan federal tax credit for film and television. Bass has faced criticism over her response to declining local production and industry jobs, while Raman has been criticized for missing City Council votes on the issue. Raman, endorsed by the Writers Guild of America, opposed the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal but later publicly offered to work with David Ellison after the deal received a federal judge’s approval.
Sources: Deadline.