Spencer Pratt’s Uphill Climb

T he pending result in the first round of the Los Angeles mayoral election could be a huge moral victory for conservatives and anyone who is against the current political establishment in the city. Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV villain turned populist city savior, is so far holding strong in second place (30.4 percent as of this writing), behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass (34.8 percent), leading by eight points the further-left challenger Nithya Raman, who was becoming a darling of Hollywood liberals. Votes are still being counted (because, California).

Pratt’s movement, including a very impressive and very-online social media campaign, had to pass the “Is this real?” test. Coming in ahead of Raman, even to this point, is proof that it’s real. Coming within a few points of the incumbent, establishment Democrat may be permission and encouragement for other shy-Pratt voters to let it all hang out if he advances to the second round.

But it has to be emphasized: This is a tough race for Pratt to win. Los Angeles hasn’t selected a non-Democrat to be mayor since Richard Riordan was first elected in 1993, in the wake of the Los Angeles riots. The ominous reading for Pratt is that getting into the runoff would merely reflect voter registration. Democrats had two choices. Combined, the two Democrats pulled in well over a majority of the vote. The hoped-for reading is that Pratt and Raman both represent simple change and a devoted anti-incumbent coalition. If there is not a deep group of shy-Pratt supporters that his campaign can identify and turn out, he would have to win over the vast majority of Raman’s voters, a seemingly unlikely task given that she positioned herself as a progressive-values candidate — that is, she probably attracted voters most repelled by Pratt’s populist swagger.

Pratt has put together a surprising coalition of Hollywood moguls, actors, and producers who can give his final push real financial heft. Haim and Cheryl Saban — heavyweight Democratic donors — have maxed out to Pratt. A number of tech executives from Tinder and Ring have contributed to him, along with Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. He has a kind of loud cheering section among a slice of the Hollywood elite. Doug Ellin, who created the HBO show Entourage, has made compelling social media videos about how his career glamorized the city, which now has fallen so far it needs the radical shake-up that only Pratt offers.

Still, if you were betting, you’d likely go with the incumbent. Bass has gotten all the Democratic Party grandees to support her, from Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders to Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris. Crucially for the mayoral race, she has unusually deep support in organized labor. The L.A. AFL-CIO endorsed her. So did the LA/OC Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents many smaller unions. Altogether that’s nearly 1 million members of highly active unions in a state where union members can collect ballots from other voters.

For Pratt to have a chance, he’s going to need to be broader than the usual Hollywood dissenter crew. He needs to keep Trump and other below-water national Republican figures at arm’s length but no further than that. He needs independents and a significant slice of Democrats. In other words, he needs his campaign to be the catalyst for a citywide realization that Los Angeles is facing a crisis and needs a change.

Ultimately, Pratt is the candidate of people in Los Angeles who cannot insulate themselves from city dysfunction. He seems to understand this because he focuses his message on moms who interact with the public school system and confront the visible disorder and filth that has spread over Los Angeles streets and into parks. He has a shot — a small but real chance of winning — because that disorder and misgovernance reached even him, a well-off social media influencer living in one of the urban single-family-home neighborhoods in the country. If he can make this race an up-or-down vote on the status quo, he can win.