New poll shows L.A. mayor's race tightening days ahead of primary

Karen Bass, Nithya Raman, Spencer Pratt.

With just days to go until California voters head to the polls in the state's primary election, a new poll shows the race for L.A. mayor tightening and incumbent Karen Bass' lead in the race shrinking to the point of being "statistically insignificant."

Bass is still in the lead, the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies / Los Angeles Times poll showed, with 26% of those surveyed responding that they support the incumbent. City Council member Nithya Raman, who runs to the left of Bass, came in second with 25% support and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt drew 22% support of those polled. California's primary is Tuesday, June 2.

Previous polls had shown Bass with a more comfortable lead in recent weeks. An Emerson College poll conducted in early May showed Bass with 30% support, Pratt with 22% and Raman in third with 19%. And the last UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies / Los Angeles Times poll, conducted back in March, showed Bass in the lead with 25% support, Raman second with 17% and Pratt, whose insurgent candidacy had just begun to gain momentum, with 14%. 

If campaign fundraising is any indication of how things might play out next Tuesday, Pratt is leading that race with with $3.26 million in contributions through May 16, according to The Los Angeles Times, Bass is in second with $3.13 million and Raman is in third with just under $1 million. 

“You’ve got three very different candidates, each with very different constituencies, all within the margin of error. It’s going to boil down to turnout,” director of Berkeley IGS polls Mark DiCamillo told The Los Angeles Times.

Pratt has continued to hammer away at Bass on social media, where his candidacy has taken off in recent weeks. The former reality star, who is seeking elected office for the first time, posted a screenshot from a 1983 Los Angeles Times story, which described how incumbent mayor Karen Bass, then in her 20s, spent a portion of 1973 in Cuba training "in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare while claiming to harvest sugar cane."

If no candidate amasses a minimum of 50% of the vote on Tuesday, the top two finishers advance to a runoff in November.

Watch the video below for more on the tightening race.