Actor and comedian Jamie Kennedy is questioning what he sees as a dramatic shift in the Los Angeles mayoral race, joining a growing chorus of supporters who are struggling to understand how reality television personality Spencer Pratt could still be leading in the vote count while his odds of advancing to the general election have collapsed.
The controversy centers on California’s notoriously slow ballot-counting process, which once again has become the focus of intense political debate as thousands of votes remain uncounted days after Election Day.
Kennedy, best known for his role in the Scream franchise, took to social media Friday after seeing election forecasts showing City Councilmember Nithya Raman with a roughly 95% chance of advancing to November’s runoff election despite Pratt maintaining a lead in the actual vote tally.
“This is a literal crime scene,” Kennedy wrote.
“There is no way this is an honest election.”
The post quickly spread online, fueling criticism from voters who have grown increasingly frustrated with California’s lengthy vote-counting process and the way election projections can diverge from current vote totals.
Just days earlier, betting markets and election forecasters had given Pratt more than a 75% chance of advancing out of the primary. Now, many analysts believe the momentum has shifted toward Raman even though Pratt remains ahead in the reported results.
The race itself is a battle for the second runoff position. Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass has already secured enough support to be widely viewed as a lock for the general election. The remaining question is whether Pratt or Raman will join her on the November ballot.
As of Saturday, Los Angeles County election officials had processed approximately 71% of expected ballots. Pratt led with 28.2% of the vote while Raman trailed at 24.9%.
Ordinarily, a lead of several percentage points would seem encouraging for a candidate.
The complication is that not all ballots are created equal.
This is a literal crime scene. There is no way this is an honest election. https://t.co/XmdOs6YBy8
— Jamie Kennedy (@JamieKennedy) June 6, 2026
Election analysts note that many of the outstanding ballots come from vote-by-mail returns and heavily Democratic areas that historically report later in the counting process. Those ballots tend to favor progressive candidates and younger voters, demographics generally viewed as strengths for Raman.
That trend became particularly noticeable on Friday when Raman cut more than 20,000 votes from Pratt’s lead in a single day of counting.
For some observers, that shift is entirely predictable.
“Barring some mathematical surprise, today’s results suggest that Nithya Raman is likely headed to the runoff,” veteran political strategist Michael Trujillo told The California Post.
Others remain skeptical.
Conservative pollster John McLaughlin argued that California’s election system creates an environment where public confidence can erode because results take so long to finalize.
“What makes it seem strange is that for Raman to be ahead or to overtake Pratt, it means that the remaining Democrat votes had to vote for Raman instead of Bass,” McLaughlin said.
“The dynamic there is plausible, but it also raises doubts and questions about a system that’s flawed.”
That distinction is important. Critics aren’t necessarily arguing that late-counted ballots are impossible to explain. Rather, they argue that when large numbers of votes continue arriving or being processed long after Election Day, it creates fertile ground for suspicion and confusion.
California officials counter that the process is functioning exactly as designed.
The state accepts vote-by-mail ballots, provisional ballots, and ballots that require signature verification, all of which can take significant time to process. Election officials maintain that every ballot must be verified before it can be counted and that shifts in vote totals often reflect demographic voting patterns rather than anything improper.
Still, for supporters of Pratt, watching a candidate maintain a lead while forecasts increasingly favor his opponent has proven difficult to accept.
