Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has been knocked out of the Los Angeles mayor’s race, according to the latest projections, a blow to Donald Trump after the president championed his candidacy.
Democrat Karen Bass, the city’s incumbent mayor, had already advanced to the November run-off by winning the open primary held on June 2 and Pratt, 42, initially held a lead over leftist city council member Nithya Raman in the battle for second place.
However, as the counting continued, Raman steadily ate into his advantage and now finds herself on 28.5 percent of the vote, compared to the Republican’s 25.8 percent, according to the latest forecasts cited by the BBC, NBC News and other outlets.
Pratt has repeatedly insisted in recent days that all is not lost and told his supporters Monday: “Folks, we’re dealing with a fraction of a percentage point difference, there’s still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding, and LA officials have given us the next 3 weeks to count! Let’s git-r-dun!”
It now looks over for the former star of MTV’s The Hills, rendering the run-off a choice between two Democrats.
Bass, 72, is the first Black woman to lead L.A. and is seeking a second term. She suffered a difficult 2025 in which she faced devastating wildfires in January and angry protests against ICE raids the following summer, but retains the support of influential California Democrats like Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi.
Raman, 44, was a surprise late entrant to the race, having only served on the city council since 2020, who has been likened to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was driven to power by an inspired grassroots campaign in the Big Apple last year.
She has a background in urban planning and has campaigned on expanding affordable housing, cutting homelessness and bringing jobs back to Hollywood. Like Pratt, she has criticized Bass for not doing enough in response to last year’s fires.
In the parallel race to find the Golden State’s next governor, it has yet to be determined whether Republican former spin doctor and Fox News pundit Steve Hilton or billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer will join ex-U.S. health secretary Xavier Becarra in the final two.
That has not stopped Trump claiming on Truth Social that Hilton has “advanced” to the run-off, a day after complaining that the state’s elections are “crooked” and that his preferred candidates are “being cheated,” without providing evidence.
Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, for one, has hit out at the president’s insistence that Democrats are conniving to fix the outcome, calling his argument: “The dumbest conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard.”
“The Democratic establishment and Karen Bass wanted Spencer Pratt in the run-off,” Enten pointed out, implying that Bass would have preferred to face Pratt and considered him easier to beat than Raman.
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