Vice President JD Vance has suggested that it is “pretty shady” that reality TV star Spencer Pratt did not advance in the Los Angeles mayoral primary.
In an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters, Vance weighed in on the MAGA outrage after the Republican candidate was pushed into third place by Democrat Nithya Raman as more mail-in votes were counted.
“Fundamentally, the problem here with this whole thing is how is it that you had, you know, [Los Angeles Mayor] Karen Bass was in first place, Spencer Pratt was in second place, and then this other woman was in third place. You would expect these mail-in ballots to kind of meet that same basic pattern,” Vance said.
“But somehow, we find ourselves in a situation where, number one, they’re still receiving ballots—not just counting ballots, Jesse, they’re still receiving ballots—and number two, the way that they’re coming in just so happens to work out such that the Republican is getting kicked out of the final two, so it’s a Democrat-versus-Democrat runoff. That seems pretty shady to me.”
Pratt, a former star of The Hills, was confirmed to have lost the all-party primary after the Associated Press called the race for Raman as the second candidate to advance to the runoff alongside incumbent Karen Bass.
President Donald Trump and numerous other MAGA figures have suggested that the reason Pratt was falling behind in the race was that the election was “rigged,” without offering evidence to support those claims.
“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
The Los Angeles mayoral primary was decided after several days of voting and counting in California, a state notorious for its lengthy ballot-tallying process.
This includes counting all mail-in votes, which Democratic voters have historically favored, while Republican voters have tended to vote in person on Election Day.
The mail-in votes appear to have benefited Raman, who was trailing Pratt in the race just days ago. She now leads him by 28.6 percent to 25.8 percent, with 92 percent of the votes counted.
L.A. is also a deep-blue city, with Los Angeles County voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election with nearly 65 percent of the votes, compared to 32 percent for Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also expressed frustration with California’s vote-counting procedures, although he stopped short of endorsing Trump’s unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.
“I’m not saying it’s rigged,” Johnson told CNN. “I’m saying it stinks to high heaven, and everybody knows that. Let’s remove the appearance of impropriety. Let’s have—what a concept—votes on Election Day. That’s what many states are able to do. I think California is playing around with us.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Vance’s office for further comment.
