Half of America is watching LA count its votes with a sense of déjà vu: The spectacle of a candidate who is leading on election night, suddenly falling behind when mail-in ballots are counted, is what caused many to regard the 2020 election as fraudulent.
There was no proof of fraud then, just as there is no proof in LA; but the process does not inspire confidence. The fact that we are being told — by incumbents — that everything is OK only deepens the suspicion.
It was always possible — as I had said before Election Day — that socialist Nithya Raman would take second place, ahead of Pacific Palisades fire survivor Spencer Pratt.
I used an analogy from auto racing: Raman was “drafting” off Pratt, letting him do the tough work of attacking incumbent Karen Bass, and take all the attacks in return, then scooping up voters who decided they could not reelect Bass, but would not vote for a Trump-like Republican.
Yet, assuming that Raman does qualify for the general election ahead of Pratt, it would have been better to know that on election night — not several days after the fact.
If there were, in fact, fraud, this is exactly what it would look like. Again, there is no proof of fraud — but there is no proof that it isn’t. And those who defend California’s system as necessary for fairness and accuracy cannot explain why other Democrat-run states manage to count their results relatively quickly.
The California vote-counting debacle reflects a broader breakdown of social trust. Democracy is not just a matter of majority rule; it is also a system of taking turns. And if a minority — be it a racial minority, or a political minority — is systemically excluded from governance, the system starts to fall apart.
Love him or not, Pratt stood for a part of LA that paid big taxes, but burned because it received poor services in return. His defeat is a blow to the idea of self-governance.
In 2022, Pacific Palisades voted for Rick Caruso over Bass. Caruso’s mall in Palisades was one of the only major commercial buildings to survive last year’s fire. He protected his with private firefighters; most of what Bass was responsible for protecting burned down.
Bass appears to have done poorly again in Pacific Palisades. It’s not clear what Raman offers the community: She held an event in the area before Election Day, but was invisible in the fire zone before then.
Around the nation, cities that are badly run by Democrats are choosing to move further left. Chicago voters ousted failing mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2023 — and elected Brandon Johnson, a favorite of the teachers’ unions. He is running the city into the ground, most recently losing the Chicago Bears to Indiana.
New York elected Zohran Mamdani, who promptly let 18 homeless people die on the streets, and has obsessed about Israel as antisemitic attacks sweep the city.
Many Democrats think Mamdani is a great success. Crime is down! He balanced the budget! But crime is falling everywhere (thanks in part to the hated ICE), and Mamdani had to rely on accounting tricks to make ends meet.
Democrats don’t know that, because they tend to inhabit a comfortable mainstream media bubble. Likewise, they know that Adam Hamawy, candidate for Congress in New Jersey, saved lives as a US army combat surgeon, but don’t know of his alleged ties to Al Qaeda terrorists.
Even when Democrats do know damning details about their candidates, they ignore them.
In Maine, they are overlooking Graham Platner’s horrific Nazi tattoo and his record of abusive behavior toward women. Some excuse him by claiming Trump was no better; perhaps they still believe the hoax that Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people” (in fact, he said they should be “condemned totally”). They back Platner because they think he can win.
Winning is all that matters to Democrats, after two years out of power. And the polls suggest Democrats are ahead in the midterm races; they may even take Texas.
Pundits will search for explanations in Trump’s perceived failures. The truth is that his policies are generally working: the border is secure, employment is up, Iran is defeated (despite media coverage otherwise).
It’s the assertiveness of his administration, not any particular failures, that has roused his opponents.
Platner is not an outlier; many of the Democrats’ new nominees indulge antisemitic conspiracy theories of Israeli “control.” For every Thomas Massie defeated on the right, there is a Darializa Avila Chevalier rising on the left.
Platner, who claims his SS tattoo was an innocent mistake, still makes wild claims about AIPAC, the pro-Israel group.
This is how radicals take power. And if voters cannot trust elections, we may soon despair of democracy’s ability to keep extremism at bay.
Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.
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