Reality television personality Spencer Pratt has unexpectedly surged into second place in the race for Los Angeles mayor, posing a significant challenge to incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass. This development has set the stage for a potential continuation of his fierce campaign efforts.
As polls closed in California, Pratt, a Republican, appeared ready to move forward to a runoff election against Bass, who is seeking re-election for a second term. This unexpected advancement has added a new twist to the election landscape.
Karen Bass remains in the lead, with her progressive opponent, City Council member Nithya Raman, trailing in third place. At the time of reporting, nearly half of the ballots had been counted.
However, Pratt’s position in the race remains uncertain due to California’s extensive use of mail-in voting. Many votes, anticipated to favor Democrats, were still expected to be counted, potentially altering early results.
The top two candidates from this round will compete in a runoff election scheduled for November, intensifying the political showdown.
Outside a Mexican restaurant where he hosted a private election watch party, Pratt expressed his enthusiasm to reporters, declaring, “She knows it’s on. I hope she’s ready. I literally could not be more excited.”
The LA Mayor’s race turned into a vengeance campaign against Bass at the hands of Pratt, an alum of the popular reality TV show The Hills who lost his $3 million home with wife Heidi Montag in the 2025 Palisades fire.
Pratt got a boost from user-created AI videos and his own team’s creative ads, in which the reality veteran pledged to be a change agent who would take on the city’s massive homeless problem.
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt upended the LA mayor’s race when he entered the contest in January. A registered Republican, Pratt mounted a vengeance campaign against incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass, who he holds responsible for his $3 million home burning down
Incumbent Democratic LA Mayor Karen Bass (left), who took a lot of political heat over the LA fires last year, attracted a last-minute progressive challenger in LA City Council member Nithya Raman (right)
Bass – who was at an embassy cocktail party in Ghana when the LA fires were raging, according to the LA Times – also attracted an opponent from her political left, Raman, a progressive member of LA’s City Council.
The race could have been won outright Tuesday night, but with so many candidates on the ballot, it was long expected to go to a run-off.
A candidate would have needed to clinch a majority to avoid a November run-off.
Bass characterized herself as a steady hand who has made progress on homelessness and lowering crime.
The mayor addressed her supporters early, as the returns indicated that she would advance to a runoff, despite no race call being made.
‘We’re going to build a city where parents and kids do not have to navigate tents, because in the nation’s second-largest city, there should never be anybody that is sleeping on our streets,’ she said.
‘We are a city that can deal with this, and we have been doing this, and we are going to continue,’ she pledged.
More broadly, she promised to do more if voters gave her another four years.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addressed supporters early in the night despite the race not being called because it became apparent that she would move on to a runoff in November
‘We want to bring change to our city, and that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do,’ she said.
Raman entered the mayoral race in February, just hours before the filing deadline despite previously being a political ally of Bass.
She was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, who saw success in New York City with the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who easily won the general election in November.
‘Los Angeles deserves a mayor that doesn’t drag their feet. Karen Bass promised change. Instead, Angelenos got delays,’ Raman promised in a social media post leading up to Election Day.
Pratt entered the race on January 7, the anniversary of the devastating Palisades fire.
Since then, he’s held Bass’s feet to the fire – including with ads where he rapped to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air showing footage of the remains of his home and where he told voters: ‘They let my home burn down. I know the consequences of failed leadership.’
During their one meeting on the debate stage, Pratt said of Bass: ‘I blame this person for burning my house down.’
A subsequent debate was cancelled when Raman pulled out after Bass had already done so.
Reporters were pushed out of Spencer Pratt’s election night party and were forced to broadcast from the sidewalk in front of the Mexican restaurant where Pratt’s family, friends and invited supporters were gathered
Spencer Pratt supporter Gregg Donovan holds a sign in support of the registered Republican LA mayoral candidate outside his election night party Tuesday in Los Angeles
Cookies showing the face of reality TV star Spencer Pratt, the leading Republican candidate for Los Angeles mayor who became famous for appearing on the reality TV show, The Hills alongside his future wife, Heidi Montag
A van advertising Republican Spencer Pratt’s mayoral bid in Los Angeles. Pratt has centered his campaign on building back LA after last year’s fires and decreasing homelessness
The former reality TV star told voters that a vote for Raman was just another vote for Bass’s failed policies.
Pratt also pledged to ‘get the golden age of Los Angeles back,’ echoing President Donald Trump’s promise that his second term would be a ‘golden age’ for America.
But the Republican has tried to keep national politics at an arm’s distance, downplaying positive comments Trump made about his run and the assertion the President made that Pratt was a ‘MAGA person.’
‘I’m a big nobody person,’ he replied when asked about Trump’s comments by LA’s ABC7. In another interview, he said his core constituency was ‘mothers.’
Still, Pratt had a tall order in a heavily Democratic city – the last time a Republican was elected mayor was 1997 and Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 3 to 1 in LA County.
And some of Pratt’s previous statements and interviews became campaign fodder.
When he appeared on CNN with Jake Tapper last week, the newsman asked him about appearing on right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones show in 2009, where he agreed that 9/11 was ‘100 percent’ an inside job.
Pratt chalked up the comments to being ‘young and naive,’ with the 42-year-old then saying what he’s learned since is that ‘it’s actually the negligence of the people in power.’
‘I would have loved to have gone along with, when my house burned down and my parents’ house burned down, everyone saying, “It was lasers! It was a land grab! It was just like Maui!” But it’s not,’ he said. ‘The reality is, people in charge fail us as taxpayers.’
Reality TV star couple Heidi Montag (left) and Spencer Pratt (right) appear at an event in March amid Pratt’s run for Los Angeles mayor
Republican Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt is photographed handing out ice cream (left) and doling out barbecue (right) at recent campaign events
Spencer Pratt shocked the political world when he announced on the one-year anniversary of the Palisades fire in January that he would mount a campaign for Los Angeles mayor
Pratt also appeared to rebound after TMZ revealed he had been staying at the swanky Hotel Bel-Air not the Airstream trailer he had used in his campaign ads.
The candidate’s head of security told the Daily Mail that ‘credible threats’ to Pratt’s life forced him to stay at the more secure facility, while Montag and the couple’s two sons were staying outside of LA in Carpinteria.
Beyond Trump – and while 2024 Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, an LA resident, backed Bass – an assortment of celebrities and reality stars have endorsed Pratt.
They include Joe Rogan, Laguna Beach veteran Kristin Cavallari, Tom Schwartz of Vanderpump Rules, Dennis Quaid, Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger and Kelsey Grammer.
Ahead of Election Day, despite polls showing Pratt in third place behind the two Democrats, the ex-reality star predicted a victory.
‘I believe I’m winning tomorrow night, outright,’ he told CNN’s Michaelson on Monday. ‘I think there’s a tsunami of votes coming from all the people who are done with politics-as-usual. They want an outsider, they want a disrupter.’
Pratt downplayed the surveys, suggesting that his voters weren’t talking to pollsters.
‘They’re moms trying to dodge naked zombies with a stroller,’ he said. ‘They’re people walking their dogs through the park, making sure their dog doesn’t step on a fentanyl needle or sniff some fentanyl, or walk over human poop to get a matcha – those people don’t have time to talk to a pollster.’
