Reality TV star Spencer Pratt failed to secure a spot in the final head-to-head matchup for Los Angeles mayor despite launching a viral campaign for mayor.
The 42-year-old celebrity, who Trump praised as “a big MAGA person,” was the latest in a series of reality TV stars to attempt to parlay his years of television antics into a political career, but in this case, he came up short.
Instead, Democratic Mayor Karen Bass will face off against Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman in the runoff in November after Bass failed to win the necessary 50 percent to win her re-election bid outright.
Raman inched out Pratt Monday night, scoring 28.6 percent of the vote in comparison to Pratt’s 25.8 percent, according to the Associated Press.
MAGA Republicans expressed outrage and threw out unsubstantiated claims that the election was rigged after Raman slowly inched ahead of Pratt in the week following Election Day as the ballots were slowly counted.
However, California is a largely vote-by-mail state, and it often takes longer for the results to come in than in other states because of how California counts ballots.
While ballots need to be postmarked on or before Election Day, they can still be counted if received up to a week after the election. California officials then have 30 days to post the final results with the Secretary of State’s office.
Democrats are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans, as GOP officials like President Donald Trump have desperately tried to discredit mailed ballots, so results that come in later typically skew toward Democrats. Raman slowly gained on Pratt over the course of a week as votes were counted, and was up more than 3,000 votes by the one-week mark after the election.
California is no stranger to electing entertainers to top jobs. It elected Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor and Ronald Reagan first as governor and then president. But in this case, Pratt came up short in the deep blue city.
Pratt, 42, made a name for himself as the villainous boyfriend in the hit reality TV show The Hills when he began dating reality TV star Heidi Montag, who is now his wife. Since then, he’s made appearances in a series of reality celebrity shows.
The Republican, who ran as an Independent, launched his bid for mayor in January, exactly one year after the devastating 2025 Palisades fires destroyed his family’s home.
Pratt has been channeling the frustration of those devastated by the fire and those struggling to rebuild, and has been an outspoken critic of the city’s response.
Bass, Raman, and Pratt emerged as the frontrunners in the final stretch of the crowded race where polls showed the three in a dead-heat.
The reality star has attempted to distance himself from national politics, telling NBC News after Trump signaled his support, “I don’t need anyone’s endorsement but mothers’. That’s who’s getting me elected.”
Throughout the whirlwind campaign, Pratt has kept Los Angeles voters on their toes, surprising some with his ability to stand his ground during last month’s mayoral debate.
Apart from zeroing in on the recovery from the fire, he has focused his campaign on safety in the left-leaning city, in a race where homelessness has also been a top issue.
Pratt came under fire during the race for claiming in a viral ad that his family was living in a trailer since the fire destroyed his home, but critics accused him of actually staying in the luxury Hotel Bel-Air. Pressed on the accusations, Pratt claimed he didn’t live in a trailer or hotel, “I don’t have a house. They burned it down.”
He was also left squirming last month when confronted on CNN about promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories while appearing on Infowars in 2009. Pratt said that, based on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ research, he believed the 9/11 attack was “100 percent” an inside job.
Pratt tried to defend himself by saying he was younger, though he was 26 at the time, and argued that he now had experience with negligence.
The reality star took a less traditional path as he sought to become mayor, with his campaign relying largely on online ads and high-profile interviews. He also racked up a series of endorsements, including one from podcaster Joe Rogan.
The 42-year-old is a registered Republican running in a blue city in a blue state. When asked about why he was a registered Republican by CNN, Pratt spoke about the threats he’s received as a reality TV star.
“When I was a hated reality star, I got so many death threats, I had so much security and police, and what did they tell me to do? Get a gun,” Pratt said.
He went on to claim he aligned with Republicans due to “my safety, my personal safety, my family’s safety.”
