Reality TV villain Spencer Pratt, an enduringly wily and enterprising figure, willed his way into the Los Angeles political conversation with a buzzy mayoral bid that appears now to have failed to advance past the primary contest. Instead, incumbent Democrat Karen Bass looks in all likelihood to face off in this November’s general election against progressive city councilwoman Nithya Raman.
Pratt’s loss came as little surprise to anyone with a clue about the city’s political demographics. Not just because he has zero leadership experience and a checkered personal history that he flaunted in a bestselling memoir published shortly after announcing his run. It’s that he’s a registered Republican who tried to run for office in lefty L.A. as an independent, even after President Donald Trump anointed him “a big MAGA person.”
Still, Pratt’s self-styled redemption arc as a crusading hero became a subject of fascination, even fan fiction, for conservatives and heterodox types across the country who saw his reformist focus on municipal ills as a possible winning strategy in deepest-blue districts. Then, when it didn’t work — in the last election cycle local undercover conservative Rick Caruso, who possessed actual bona fides and goodwill, blew more than $100 million on the same wishful thinking — many of his supporters claimed the election had been rigged, despite possessing no evidence. “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” the prominent right-wing activist Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute posted on June 7.
