{"id":329565,"date":"2026-05-23T17:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T17:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329565\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T17:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T17:11:26","slug":"could-spencer-pratt-yes-that-spencer-pratt-really-be-l-a-s-next-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/329565\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Spencer Pratt \u2014 yes, that Spencer Pratt \u2014 really be L.A.’s next mayor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the latest polls are to be believed<\/a>, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt \u2014 formerly known as reality-TV villain Spencer Pratt<\/a> \u2014 has a real chance of advancing to a Nov. 3 runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.<\/p>\n

But in a city where 55% of registered voters are Democrats (like Bass) and less than 15% are Republicans (like her most colorful challenger), Pratt must first survive what could be seen, locally<\/a>, as a \u201cpoison pill<\/a>\u201d: the sudden support of Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019ll have to do it while continuing to campaign \u2026 just like Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to see him do well,\u201d the president told reporters on Wednesday. \u201cHe\u2019s a character. I heard he\u2019s a big MAGA person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The similarities between Trump, 79, and Pratt, 42, are hard to ignore. Both became 21st-century celebrities by playing themselves on television: Trump on NBC\u2019s The Apprentice, Pratt on MTV\u2019s The Hills. And both spent years monetizing their reality-TV success.<\/p>\n

For Trump, that strategy translated into a steady stream of licensing and endorsement deals worth $427.4 million, according to a 2020 New York Times investigation<\/a>. For Pratt, it meant selling crystals<\/a> and filing for a fake divorce<\/a> from his wife, Heidi Montag, whom he started dating on The Hills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public saw chaos, betrayal and divorce papers,\u201d Pratt recalls in his new memoir, entitled The Guy You Loved to Hate<\/a>. \u201cBut behind the scenes? Heidi and I were still thick as thieves, scheming side by side, laughing at how easy it was to keep the world guessing and the checks coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pratt followed Trump\u2019s lead into politics earlier this year, announcing his campaign on Jan. 7 with a speech in Pacific Palisades that dismissed \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d as \u201ca death sentence for Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m done waiting for someone to take real action,\u201d Pratt said.<\/p>\n

Pratt\u2019s launch date was intentional. Exactly one year earlier, the devastating Palisades fire had ripped through Pratt\u2019s wealthy coastal enclave, destroying both his house and parents’; Pratt and Montag sued the city and blamed Bass, who was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fire ignited. Now, he said, he wanted to take her job.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this was preventable,\u201d Pratt claimed. (The Los Angeles Times has<\/a> reported<\/a> that the city\u2019s fire department could have nipped the blaze in the bud if not for \u201ca series of communication failures and questionable decisions.\u201d) “I have realized that the city I love is being managed into the ground by people who don\u2019t have the courage to actually lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Pratt has followed Trump\u2019s playbook to a T:<\/p>\n

He has stoked quality-of-life outrage<\/a> on social media, slamming today\u2019s L.A. as a third-world hellhole rife with \u201cdarkened streetlights, stripped of copper wire,\u201d \u201chomeless encampments lining city sidewalks\u201d and \u201cdrug use in MacArthur Park,\u201d as the L.A. Times recently put it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He has spread his message by sharing rude, racy AI videos<\/a> that cast Bass as various pop-culture villains: the Joker, Darth Vader, Marvel\u2019s Thanos.<\/p>\n

And just like Trump, he has attracted a lot of media attention as a result.<\/p>\n

So far, Pratt\u2019s gamble seems to be paying off \u2014 to a degree. California has a \u201cjungle primary\u201d system, with candidates of all parties competing against each other to win 50% of the vote in an initial round of balloting, followed by a general-election runoff between the top two finishers \u2014 again, regardless of party label \u2014 if no one manages to clear that threshold.<\/p>\n

A longtime state lawmaker and former member of Congress, Bass is likely to place first in L.A.\u2019s June 2 primary. But her current job-approval rating is so low \u2014 just 24%<\/a> \u2014 that she has little chance of avoiding a runoff. In theory, Pratt could advance alongside her. The three local polls<\/a> conducted since the start of May all show him in \u2014 or effectively tied for \u2014 second place, trailing by anywhere from three to 12 percentage points.<\/p>\n

But a third candidate \u2014 the progressive city council member Nithya Raman, who has drawn comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> \u2014 is just a point or two behind Pratt, on average, suggesting the sprint for second could come down to a photo finish.<\/p>\n

Local political<\/a> observers<\/a> say the inexperienced Pratt beat expectations at the final mayoral debate on May 7; Raman seemed vexed. But they also say Trump\u2019s \u201cendorsement\u201d has given Raman a closing argument that could be potent in a liberal metropolis where the president, who launched last year\u2019s mass Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids<\/a>, is more unpopular than ever, especially with Latino voters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no surprise Donald Trump supports his LA Apprentice and \u2018Big MAGA person\u2019 Spencer Pratt,\u201d Raman wrote on X Wednesday<\/a>. A \u201cvote for my campaign stops Spencer Pratt from making it to the general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Bass\u2019s allies appear to be boosting Pratt in hopes of easing her path to a second term<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and Pratt is doing his part by downplaying his connections to Trump and the GOP in general. \u201c[This] has nothing to do with national politics or who is in the White House,\u201d he told Billy Bush on Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cI keep telling people it\u2019s a nonpartisan race.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question now is whether Pratt can cobble together enough votes to keep his latest reality show on the air until Nov. 3. \u201cOnce I see an opportunity, I\u2019m like a shark in the water, a dog with a bone,\u201d he writes in his memoir. \u201cI see what I want. I take it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the latest polls are to be believed, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt \u2014 formerly known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3882,64879,4132,48,52,51,47,50,49,43125],"class_list":["post-329565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-heidi-montag","tag-karen-bass","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-spencer-pratt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}