Spencer Pratt has pushed into serious contention in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, landing at 22% in a new poll released Thursday just days before Tuesday’s primary. The 42-year-old former star of MTV’s The Hills is now within reach of the front-runners, Karen Bass at 26% and Nithya Raman at 25%.
That makes the race more than a celebrity sideshow. In Los Angeles’ non-partisan primary, all candidates compete together, and if no one tops 50%, the two finishers with the most votes move on to November. Pratt’s rise means a reality TV figure who entered the race in January is now close enough to make the final cut if the vote breaks his way.
The UC Berkeley-LA Times poll showed how compressed the field has become among likely voters. Bass led with 26%, Raman followed at 25%, and Pratt trailed by only three points, a result that gives him a plausible path into the general election even as he runs as a Republican in a city that has not elected one to the mayor’s office since 2001.
Pratt has also built a campaign operation that looks far larger than many expected. Between 19 April and 16 May, he raised $2.7 million, nearly 10 times what Bass brought in over the same period and about seven times Raman’s haul. For a candidate with no experience in city government, that level of money and polling support has turned him into more than a protest vote.
His pitch has been rooted in the disaster that reshaped his own life. Pratt entered the race a year after losing his home in the 2025 fires, some of the deadliest and most destructive blazes in the area’s history, and much of his campaign has centered on that trauma, along with vows to fix what he calls a broken Los Angeles. He has accused Bass of failing to respond to the fire crisis and has campaigned on mandatory drug treatment as part of a push to tackle homelessness.
Bass used a campaign event on Monday to try to cut him down to size. She said he has no experience in city government and questioned whether he has ever held a real job beyond reality television, adding that she thinks he does not know the issues. Her criticism goes to the heart of Pratt’s appeal and his weakness at once: he is drawing attention and money in a liberal-leaning city precisely because he is not a familiar political figure, yet his lack of government experience is now being used against him as the race tightens.
Tuesday’s vote will show whether the poll was a warning shot or a ceiling. If Pratt can hold his share and the field stays this close, he has a real chance to finish in the top two and send a former TV villain into November with a shot at one of the most visible city halls in the country.
