Can Spencer Pratt ride viral videos to victory in the race for LA mayor?

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — Spencer Pratt might be a candidate uniquely suited for the moment: An elder millennial with everywhere-all-the-time social media instincts, bluntly spelling out Los Angeles’ challenges with homelessness, crime and mismanagement and laying blame at the feet of its entrenched Democratic establishment.

The 42-year-old former reality television star’s willingness to be raw and provocative, on the bet that authenticity is the coin of today’s political realm, helps explain the growing buzz — particularly among Republicans who see in Pratt traits similar to those that catapulted Donald Trump into the White House twice — around his run against unpopular Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ahead of the nominally nonpartisan June 2 primary.

But it also might severely limit the ability of Pratt, a registered Republican, to win a general election once voters narrow the field to two candidates. And it explains why 72-year-old Bass and her allies are trying to set up a head-to-head race in November against Pratt, rather than facing a more nuanced campaign against her chief progressive rival, 44-year-old city councilwoman Nithya Raman.

“Being louder doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s actual support for him in the city of L.A.,” said Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo.

Pratt’s emergence has jolted a race that long looked much more likely to pit Bass against a challenger from her left. But with ballots already mailed to voters and Pratt drawing the nation’s eyes to Los Angeles, the question voters will answer is whether the strains of dissatisfaction he is tapping into can overcome the reality of the city’s deep-blue bent.

“For as creative and as imaginative and as fun as Spencer Pratt’s campaign is, they run into a real math equation come June 3, if they make the runoff,” Trujillo said. “The fact that Spencer is still a registered Republican will be reasons one, two and three for Democrats to reject him.”

The Trump-Pratt parallels

Comparisons of Pratt and Trump are natural: Former reality television stars with scant political experience and penchants for sucking up most of the oxygen in an election. Plain-spoken, often combative language that can be jarring on the debate stage. Claims of simple and sweeping solutions to decades-old, intractable problems. Strategists analyzing polling and voter registration data and sensing a hard cap on their support — ceilings that Trump repeatedly broke through, and that Pratt is now attempting to shatter.

However, Trump lost the county of Los Angeles, which encompasses the city, by 49 percentage points in 2016, 44 points in 2020 and 33 points in 2024 — and the city is bluer than the county. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the city of Los Angeles by about a four-to-one margin. Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, an independent-turned-Democrat, tried to challenge Bass from the center in the 2022 mayoral election, and lost that race by 10 points.

Pratt, the villain of “The Hills,” will have to appeal much more broadly for voters to give him the opportunity he wants to become Los Angeles’ hero.

And he’ll have to do so against the backdrop of a polarized national electorate, with Democrats seemingly motivated to vote in races up and down the ballot as a counter to Trump.

The sense of momentum behind his campaign is driven in part by national buzz — seen most vividly in the reaction to an AI-generated video created by filmmaker Charles Curran portraying Pratt as Batman.

In the video, Pratt is fighting to save Los Angeles from the likes of Bass (portrayed as the Joker), Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, the state’s former attorney general and senator before being elected vice president, and Democratic Socialists of America members. The three prominent Democrats are pelted with tomatoes. Pratt shared the video on his social media accounts.

“Maybe the best political ad of the year,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said on X.

“How could you not vote for this guy?” asked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The video spread among social media influencers aligned with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, where it was widely praised.

That’s the Catch-22 for Pratt. The reaction raising Pratt’s profile nationally might be a boon for his fundraising and could fuel interest in his campaign. But it could also backfire among the voters who decide elections in Los Angeles — the majority of whom are Democrats who are still likely to approve of figures like Newsom and Harris. It’s not clear whether the inroads Pratt has made with White voters on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley extend to the city’s broader, more diverse electorate.

“His most challenging problem is the fact that he’s a Republican and so much of the national attention around him has been leaning into the MAGA movement,” said Christian Grose, a University of Southern California political science professor.

“The more he’s associated with MAGA Republicanism, he will lose,” he said. “If he could lean a little bit away from the Republican Party, he still would probably lose, but he’s got a better chance.”

Why Pratt is taking on ‘Mayor Basura’

Pratt launched his mayoral bid on January 7 — the one-year anniversary of the Palisades fire that destroyed his home and thousands of others.

Pratt has blamed Bass — who had broken a pledge not to travel overseas as mayor and was in Ghana at the time the fire broke out — for his home’s destruction. Pratt, who had already built a massive social media following, immediately took to his channels to lambast Bass and her response to the fire.

“She should have resigned on January 7, when she was in Ghana and everything was burning,” Pratt said in an interview on the “Good Guys” podcast last month. “She decided to continue on this quest of destroying Los Angeles. And I personally would like my children to be able to grow up in an L.A. that I grew up in — a beautiful L.A.; an L.A. that had hopes and dreams.”

It’s a message with some appeal in a city where some residents wear hats that say “Make LA Entourage Again,” harkening back to the vibes of Los Angeles between 2004 and 2011, when the HBO show aired.

Pratt’s social media feeds are a constant stream of examples of public disorder — a theme that’s the focus of his advertising, too, including billboards.

“Sick of the chaos? Ready to feel safe?” says one billboard portraying a woman pushing a stroller through a burning “Zombieland.”

Another portrays Pratt as a window washer and says: “Let’s clean LA together!”

What’s more complicated is solving the problems Pratt often highlights: homelessness, drug addiction, mental health, management of emergencies, a regulatory environment that stalls progress and more.

In the podcast interview, Pratt said that solving the city’s challenges is “easy,” but said entrenched interests stand in the way.

He often calls Bass “Mayor Basura,” the Spanish word for trash. And Pratt’s supporters have picked up on the AI portrayal of him as Batman, a superhero who can take on who they see as the city’s villains.

But Bass said that portrayal of Pratt “plays into people’s desperation.”

“I think oftentimes we look for somebody superhuman to save us,” Bass said in an interview with CNN’s Elex Michaelson. “The reality is it never happens.”

Still, California Republican strategist Matt Shupe argued that Pratt’s campaign represents a “real sort of lightning in a bottle opportunity” in a city long controlled by Democrats.

He compared Pratt to Democratic insurgents in New York City — Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — in his ability to create viral moments, his use of campaign tactics that other candidates aren’t using and his talent on camera.

“The party registration is not on the ballot,” Shupe said. “And so, that forces people to actually think about who they’re voting for, rather than voting for the letter next to their name. And I think that will work in his favor.”

What the debate revealed

A recent debate hosted by NBC4 offered a vivid window into the mayoral race’s dynamics.

What was immediately clear: No candidate believes they are likely to top 50% in the primary, which means a runoff featuring the top two finishers in November will be necessary.

Also clear was that Bass and Pratt want to run against each other — even though they won’t say so. The two attacked Raman, the progressive councilwoman, repeatedly — which Raman noted, telling the crowd that “each of them thinks that running against each other is what’s going to help them win.”

Pratt shot back that he’d rather run against Raman.

“You think it’s easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions, or a random city council member who’s been a failure for six years?” he said.

Raman mocked Pratt for having “a MAGA Republican’s idea of what Los Angeles looks like.”

Pratt, meanwhile, cast Bass and Raman as unserious about public safety and order. He chided Raman over a plan to deploy treatment teams to homeless encampments as part of an effort to reduce those encampments.

“I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her, and we can find some of these people she’s going to offer treatment for. She’s going to get stabbed in the neck,” Pratt said. “These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl or super-meth.”

What the primary will test is how voters are responding to Pratt’s message: whether they are seeking a dramatic break from Los Angeles’ leadership and policies, or whether he alienates those in a city that voted recently to approve a sales tax hike to fund anti-homelessness efforts.

Pratt’s best bet, Grose said, is if voters view him as “some kind of fresh alternative” who can appeal to a diverse cross-section of mainstream Democrats and independents.

“The biggest gift to Karen Bass,” he said, “would be Spencer Pratt, Republican, in the general election.”

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CNN’s Kyung Lah contributed to this report.