Topline
Elon Musk early on Monday boosted unsubstantiated claims questioning the results of the primary elections in California, focusing specifically on the Los Angeles Mayoral primary, as the progressive Democratic candidate Nithya Raman overtook Republican Spencer Pratt’s vote count, putting her on track to join incumbent mayor Karen Bass in a runoff.
Key Facts
According to the Associated Press, 83% of the votes have been tallied so far in the Mayoral primary and Raman has secured 27.1% of the vote, putting her narrowly ahead of Pratt, who has 26.7%.
AP has already called the race for Bass, who is moving ahead to the runoff, where she will be joined by either Pratt or Raman.
Pratt, a former reality star whose campaign borrowed President Donald Trump’s playbook and leaned on dissatisfaction over Bass’ handling of last year’s wildfires, was leading Raman when the first tranche of votes was released last Tuesday night.
However, with the late and mail-in votes being heavily Democratic-leaning, Raman continued to eat into the gap and overtook Prat on Sunday.
What Has Musk Posted About The Elections?
On Sunday, the billionaire and key GOP donor boosted several posts that were questioning the results of the mayoral election and baselessly suggesting that Democrats were engaged in fraud. On Sunday, Musk first reshared a post by venture capitalist and Sequoia Partner Shaun Maguire, which read: “It takes a conspiracy theorist. To believe California’s election is secure.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO then boosted several posts that tried to claim that Raman’s performance was a “statistical impossibility”—even though Los Angeles is a deeply blue city—and that itself suggests evidence of fraud. The billionaire also reshared an X user’s question to Grok, amplifying a conspiracy that Pratt had received 0 votes amid a major overnight drop of 24,000 ballots—even though the post he was citing already had an X community note citing a DOJ statement disproving it. Musk also suggested that it would be a “worthwhile exercise” to interview “1000 homeless people” in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Skid Row and ask them who they had voted for.
What Has Trump Said About The California Elections?
Musk’s remarks echo similar unsubstantiated claims made by President Donald Trump last week, claiming that Democrats were trying to “steal” the California primaries from two GOP candidates, Pratt and the GOP Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton. Without sharing any evidence to back his allegations, Trump attacks “very late and massive numbers of” mail-in ballots, echoing his long-time opposition to voting by mail and false claims he has made about the 2020 elections. The president then claimed the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles was investigating the voting process. On Sunday night, he attacked California’s electoral process once again on Truth Social and said: “Two great Republican Candidates are being cheated, and so is America, which if the Dumocrats are able to fulfill their mission, great trouble and consternation will follow.” Early on Monday morning, Trump posted again as some outlets called the mayoral race in favor of Raman and wrote: “No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!”
chief critic
In a post on X, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office responded to Trump’s overnight post, saying: “There isn’t a bigger sore loser in the country. Back to bed grandpa!”
chief critic
Trump Baselessly Accuses Democrats Of ‘Stealing’ California Primaries (Forbes)
Trump Storms Out Of ‘Meet The Press’ Interview After Insisting California’s Primary Election Is ‘Rigged’ (Forbes)