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WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

Spencer Pratt Loses Out to Nithya Raman in L.A., as California Keeps Counting Mail Votes

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

News, Society & Culture

4.22.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On election night Pratt was in second place to Mayor Karen Bass, and now after a week of watching his position be steadily eroded by late-arriving ballots, some Republicans are crying foul. Is there hard evidence of fraud? Or is this simply another example of California's lax voting rules straining public confidence? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I think the potential of Agenic is to rethink how work gets done overall.

0:05.0

It challenges all sorts of traditional orthodoxies around how organizations execute the work at hand.

0:11.2

That's Jason Gersatus, CEO of Deloitte U.S., talking about the transformational potential of A.Gentic AI.

0:17.8

Join him later to learn why agents are a game changer for businesses across industries.

0:25.6

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

0:32.4

Spencer Pratt falls to third place and out of the general election for Los Angeles mayor, as California keeps counting and counting and counting late mail ballots in its June 2nd primary, with thousands of votes still unprocessed going on a week later.

0:48.3

Republicans cry foul, but is there any evidence of actual fraud and malfeasance, or is this just another run-of-the-mill failure from

0:55.6

California's broken election system? Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal.

1:01.2

We're joined today by my colleagues on the WSJ's opinion pages, columnists Alicia Finley, and

1:07.8

Kim Strassel. Election Day was now a week ago in California, yet according to the

1:12.6

Associated Press results, the governor's race still has an estimated 17% of the vote outstanding.

1:19.6

And if I'm doing the math right on the total number of ballots, that's something like 1.3 million

1:24.9

votes still unprocessed. The latest results there, the order at least hasn't changed.

1:31.5

Javier Bacera, Democrat, the Democrat advancing to the top two general election with about 27% of the vote.

1:40.0

Steve Hilton, the Republicans still hanging in there with about 25%, and then Tom Steyer with 22%.

1:46.6

It's the L.A. Mayor's race with about 8% of the votes still to come that has really been shaken up.

1:53.5

The outcome here now is Karen Bass with about a third of the vote.

1:57.4

And then Nithia Rahman, the socialist city councilwoman, with about 29% overtaking

2:03.5

outsider Spencer Pratt, who has fallen into third place. This has caused many Republicans to cry

2:10.1

foul, including President Trump. Let's listen to him Sunday on Meet the Press.

2:15.4

Look at what's happening in California. It's four days. The Republicans, it's, no, they're not, they're dropping fast because it's a rigged election. Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up with it. You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election. Do you, what, do you have evidence to support that? All I have to do is look.

2:36.0

All I have to do is look.

...

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