The Spencer Pratt Earthquake Hitting California

With three weeks until Election Day, the sudden ascendancy of Pratt's candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles has Democrats in panic mode in the Golden State.

A political earthquake is hitting California right now—and considering the reaction by both Republicans and Democrats, this tremor lands somewhere near the top of a figurative Richter scale.

Spencer Pratt, whose family lost their home in the Palisades inferno last year, is seeking to unseat first-term Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat with more than 20 years in elective office including in Congress; his sudden ascendancy has shaken Democrats from coast to coast and prompted the GOP to contemplate the earth-shattering prospect of an avowed Republican winning the mayorship of the nation’s second largest city.

Best known for his role in an early 2000s reality TV show where he met wife Heidi Montag, Pratt is using inventive ways to portray the cruel reality faced by most Angelenos on a daily basis. Pratt’s trope-free messaging brings a breath of fresh air to the at least 17,000 homeowners still smoked out by the unprecedented fires and others choking on Los Angeles’ drug, homelessness, and mental health crises. “I’m not a politician,” Pratt wrote on his campaign website. “I’m a husband and father who watched my home burn because the system failed us. We don’t need more government programs. We need common sense, accountability, and a Mayor that shows up for everyone.” He’s even going after massive fraud in the city and the open abuse of animals.

The campaign’s AI-generated advertisements, which immediately go viral, not only represent the stark 30-year age difference and elitism gap between Pratt and Bass but also are the envy of the political world, with copycats undoubtedly studying how to use similar creativity in upcoming national elections. The ads reflect Pratt’s all-or-nothing approach to winning the June 2 non-partisan primary, a strategy that must be embraced by other common sense candidates on the political right if they want to prevail over radical progressives turning many of the country’s biggest cities into disaster zones.

Here are just a few:

Beyond Good Campaign Ads

Pratt is even more candid—and refreshing—on the stump. He speaks like the native Angeleno and father of two young boys that he is, someone heartbroken and fed up with the escalating disintegration of the city he loves. “When people have passion and they care and they have common sense and they have humility to know ‘I don’t know everything,’ but what I do know is all these very smart, successful people in Los Angeles want to get around me, get behind me, and make sure that LA is the number-one city in the world,” Pratt said during a recent CBS News interview. (I posted the interview in full at the end of this piece. After Pratt publicly accused CBS executives of dramatically editing his one-hour interview at Bass’ behest, the network aired the whole thing.)

His Substack offers more detailed criticism of the Bass administration and proposals to undo the damage.

What’s even more enviable, and equally as dangerous to the political establishment’s thinking on both sides of the political aisle that cautions white male candidates on being too tough on women of color, Pratt is pulling no punches against Bass, who is black, and his other top opponent, Nithya Raman, a city councilwoman and self-described democratic socialist of Indian descent who is attacking Bass from the Left.

Pratt confronted both women on their leadership failures and empty promises during a debate last week:

Debate viewers overwhelmingly selected Pratt as the winner, prompting Bass to back out of a mayoral forum hosted later this week by the League of Women Voters. (Oh, the irony!)

Laying Bare California’s ‘Dysfunction’ at the Hands of Progressive Leaders Could Impact Future Races

Pratt’s surge could not come at a more inconvenient time for California Democrats, who are fending off a tough Republican gubernatorial candidate in former TV personality Steve Hilton. As Axios noted post-debate, “[the] two most consequential races in California have devolved into twin spectacles, with years of visible dysfunction hollowing out Democrats’ case for competent leadership.” California, reporter Zachary Basu continued, should represent “the Democratic Party’s proof of concept — a diverse, economically dominant liberal stronghold designed to prove progressive governance could deliver at scale. That vision has unraveled, ground down by an affordability crisis, homelessness, bureaucratic paralysis and a botched response to the worst wildfires in California history.”

If Pratt reaches a run-off—the top two candidates advance to the November general election if no one earns 50 percent of the primary vote—the reverberations will be felt nationwide. Donations will pour into Pratt’s coffers from around the world, likely leading to his position as the immediate front-runner with potential ramifications for both the gubernatorial election and key Congressional races in the Golden State.

And a Pratt victory could impact mayoral races in other blue cities next year. Democratic incumbents are up for re-election in Chicago, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Columbus, and Denver. With the exception of Chicago, few other cities are in worse shape than Los Angeles, however, a straightforward message by an authentic outsider could turn the heads of even the most diehard Democratic voter.

Polymarket now has Pratt with a 30 percent chance of winning, nearly double his standing when he announced in January. Bass is still the odds-on favorite but with Pratt surging and early voting underway, her hold on the lead appears tenuous. A union labor ad, intended to bolster Bass’ fledging campaign, actually amplified Pratt’s message about inefficiency and government corruption in the city, prompting social media mockery.

Desperate to stop Pratt’s momentum, Bass and Raman are of course attempting to demonize him as a Trump sycophant. In mocking Pratt’s description of Los Angeles as a drug-riddled, dirty, and dangerous metropolis, Raman said “this is a MAGA Republican’s idea of what Los Angeles looks like” in the May 7 debate. Those attacks are expected to escalate as Democrats seek a wedge between Pratt and residents of a city that voted for Kamala Harris by a more than 2-1 margin in 2024. (Pratt, for his part, is not shying away from Trump comparisons, even promising to bring back the “golden age” of Los Angeles and demonstrating Trump-like personality traits on the debate stage and in interviews.)

Will it work? Angelenos—and the rest of the anxious political world—will know in about three weeks from now.

CBS News Interview

All-In Podcast Interview