Spencer Pratt’s campaign in Los Angeles was run about as well as a non-Democratic campaign could be run in a major American city. The fact that he lost is proof that you simply cannot save voters who don’t want to be saved.
Pratt’s campaign has come to an end, as a late surge in ballots for City Councilwoman Nithya Raman ensured that she would advance in the top-two primary to face Mayor Karen Bass. With around 92% of the vote counted, Pratt pulled in over 207,000 votes, comparable to the 232,000 that Rick Caruso earned in 2022, which was a more favorable political environment for Republicans.
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Pratt ran a disciplined campaign, staying focused on his message that the Los Angeles Democratic establishment continuously fails the city, from homelessness to fire prevention to corrupt relationships with wasteful NGOs. He dominated the debate between the trio in early May and showed throughout the campaign that he was a serious candidate with a grasp of the issues facing Los Angeles, and not a mere celebrity candidate trying to ride name recognition and media savvy to a victory.
And yet, voters still chose to back Bass and Raman (or not vote at all) rather than push Pratt through to the general election. In doing so, Democrats won’t have to spend the next five months defending their failing record in Los Angeles. Instead, the race will be progressive establishment (Bass) vs progressive establishment (Raman), where each issue at hand will be about who can spend more money for labor unions or NGOs, and who can empathize with homeless people more while they kill themselves with drug overdoses.
SPENCER PRATT LOSS SHOWS BIG, BLUE CITIES WON’T CHANGE LEFT-WING COURSE
Pratt ran the campaign he had to run, and he ran it with incredible discipline for a political rookie, but the reality remains: You can lead big-city voters to solutions, but you can’t make them drink. Los Angeles voters were shown by Pratt that they do not need to live this way, with a wasteful city government that refuses to clean up its streets and fails to keep houses from burning down en masse. Voters decided they were just fine with living that way, though, and are now going to choose between continued decline (Bass) or accelerated decline (Raman).
Pratt did the only thing non-Democrats can do in these major cities: He gave voters an option. Voters not taking that option is not a reflection on Pratt, who ran a great campaign. It is a reflection on those voters, who will continue to get what they voted for as they choose between failed members of the city’s Democratic establishment.