MAGA Is Melting Down Over the Results From L.A.’s Mayoral Primary

Mail-in ballots continue to be counted in the race to determine which candidates will square off in Los Angeles’s Mayoral election, as California state law allows them to be received for seven days after Election Day (Tuesday, June 2), and they are verified before being counted. But a late surge for Los Angeles city councilmember Nitiya Raman, a progressive Democrat challenging incumbent mayor and fellow Democrat, Karen Bass, is driving right-wingers nuts.They were hoping that Republican Spencer Pratt, known for his time on reality TV show The Hills, would perform well enough to finish in the top two, allowing him to advance to November’s general election under California’s jungle primary rules. After initial reports last week showed him behind Bass in second place, his right-wing supporters thought his advancement was in the bag.But ballot returns for the past few days now show him falling into a distant third, and MAGA supporters from far beyond L.A. are crying conspiracy. Several conservative influencers and pundits are calling Raman’s surge “impossible,” attacking the results as illegitimate and calling L.A. Democrats “cheaters.” X user DC Draino said the results showed “Insane levels of fraud.” Republican Representative Abe Hamadeh, whose district is in faraway Arizona, said “the steal is blatant.” Elon Musk spent his Monday morning amplifying conspiracy theories about the results.President Trump has also weighed in, calling the mayor race a “rigged election” in a Truth Social post Monday morning. But all of that whining belies the fact that the last polls before Election Day predicted Bass and Raman finishing first and second, respectively. And late arriving mail-in ballots tend to favor younger, more left-leaning voters, especially in a solidly left-leaning city like Los Angeles. The right will just have to realize that L.A. voters are Democrats who aren’t going to be taken in by a reality TV star.