At first glance, a reality-TV star running for mayor of Los Angeles is just another sign that American politics has become synonymous with entertainment. But Spencer Pratt’s campaign is more interesting for an entirely different reason.
“National politics has nothing to do with why we’re sitting in my dirt lot,” Pratt recently said. “Local politics. City leadership. Who is the head of your LADWP? [Los Angeles Department of Water and Power] These are the things that concern me.”
That’s a pretty good summation of the importance of federalism.
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Pratt, best known from MTV’s The Hills, drew attention with an ad contrasting his post-wildfire trailer with the mansions of his opponents.
Part of Pratt’s hyperlocal focus is pragmatic. He’s a registered Republican running in a deep blue city. He makes it a point to ignore President Donald Trump while focusing on L.A.’s problems, emphasizing that his friends and supporters are Democrats.
“Only the communists and socialists don’t support me,” claims Pratt in an interview with CBS News.
“I don’t do national politics,” Pratt added. “I don’t do tribal politics. I don’t talk about other states. I’m localized.”
His local focus offers a blueprint for pragmatic, center-right candidates in big-city mayoral races.
Pratt’s appeal comes from cutting through bureaucratic language around crime, homelessness, taxes, housing, and infrastructure.
One example where Pratt shone was when he challenged one of his opponents, Councilwoman Nithya Raman, to meet him below L.A.’s Harbor Freeway to interact with the homeless.
“We can find some of the people she wants to offer treatment to, and she’s going to get stabbed in the neck,” said Pratt. “These people do not want a bed. They want fentanyl and super meth.” Raman, who chairs the Housing and Homelessness Committee on the city council, once advocated defunding the police.
While most people want to help the homeless, they also know Pratt is offering up a valid point that there are limits to the effectiveness of government programs. Pratt’s been highly critical, too, of taxpayer money for the homeless being filtered through nonprofit organizations that he deems corrupt, claiming it would likely be less wasteful to give the money directly to the homeless. A lot of Pratt’s success stems simply from calling out the vast deficiencies in the city’s infrastructure and safety and vowing to fix them.
One can certainly criticize Pratt for his lack of political experience, his brash tone, or even for using humorous AI-generated ads to mock his opponents. But establishment Democrats predictably reached for their familiar playbook, with Raman branding him a fascist and “mini-Trump.”
Still, he is saying something our politics badly needs to recover, and that is how much local leadership and local government matter. When he criticizes Mayor Karen Bass for her handling of the city’s wildfires and says she should have been in the country while the city was burning, that resonates.
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In the 20th century, California and Los Angeles particularly personified American opportunity and the American dream. Tens of millions of Americans went to the Golden State for the sunshine, jobs, and opportunities for wealth. Pratt insists he wants to restore his city to its prominent glory.
Even if Pratt won, there’s no way to know if he’d be effective or if his campaign is another example of more talk than action. But his campaign, win or lose, reminds us of something important: The closest governments are supposed to be the most effective and the most accountable. In a political culture addicted to national drama, that alone is worth noticing.
Ray Nothstine is a senior writer and editor and a Future of Freedom Fellow at the State Policy Network. He manages and edits American Habits.