In the end, Raman’s coalition proved far more durable offline than Pratt’s did online. However, the councilmember’s journey to the runoff was tumultuous. Raman was getting hit from every direction during the primary. Pratt tried to portray Raman—a member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America—as a limousine liberal and out-of-touch leftist ideologue. On the other side of the aisle, Raman’s ideological peers on the city council including Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, and Hugo Soto-Martínez—all members of the Democratic Socialists of America— endorsed Mayor Bass. Pratt took an early lead on Raman after the first vote totals were released on election night. But, as late-arriving ballots were counted, Raman consolidated support across many of the city’s younger, renter-heavy, racially diverse, and college-educated neighborhoods—revealing the enormous gap between internet momentum and actual electoral infrastructure. What followed was hardly surprising. After months of distancing himself from the conspiratorial thinking that formerly aligned him with Alex Jones, Pratt began hinting at election integrity issues as his lead disappeared. Accusations of election fraud levied by …