President Donald Trump expressed concern on Monday that the Los Angeles mayoral race was manipulated in favor of Democrats, after the leading Republican candidate saw his lead fall away, appearing to dash hopes of flipping the seat red. In Los Angeles, the top two vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. Last Tuesday, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass secured the top spot headed into November, but the race for second place remained too close to call, with officials counting mail-in ballots all week to determine whether Republican candidate Spencer Pratt’s narrow lead over progressive Councilwoman Nithya Raman would hold. As election results trickled in on Sunday evening, showing Pratt trailing Raman for the first time, Trump, who has previously criticized California’s slow ballot-counting process, alleged the race was “rigged.”
“No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” the president wrote in a post to Truth Social, hours after NBC published an interview where he stormed out after a tense back-and-forth over his claims about the California elections.
“Do you think it’s appropriate that they have an election and five days later, they’re nowhere close to picking a winner?” the president said, appearing to refer both to the mayoral race and California’s gubernatorial race. “Do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re cheating on the election… We’re like a third-world country.”
