David’s view
You don’t have to imagine what Los Angeles would look like under Mayor Spencer Pratt. AI already did it for you.
In one of the reality TV star-turned-candidate’s campaign videos, happy firefighters, cops, and mothers celebrate “Pratt Summer” and how it solved the city’s problems: “I’m allowed to arrest criminals now, with handcuffs and everything!” In another Pratt video, the Republican hopeful suits up as Batman and overthrows the corrupt court of incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass; sitting in her throne, glowering at peasants, she’s pelted with tomatoes that smudge her Joker facepaint.
It’s all thanks to Charles Curran, who uses AI to live his “Roger Corman dream” of instant art. He started making Pratt fan content just nine days ago. It’s now impossible not to see it, if you follow famous conservatives on X, read the New York Post, or watch TMZ. The former star of The Hills has linked homelessness to “super meth” despite mixed evidence of its rising use and promised to clean up encampments weeks after being sworn in.
“What’s worrying me now is that his social media has taken a violent turn,” Bass told CNN on Tuesday — remarks immediately clipped as proof that Pratt’s videos were working.
Conservative streamers don’t see how Pratt can lose. Democrats don’t see how he can win. But he is climbing in the polls, as a new Emerson survey shows — for a few reasons.
Seventy percent of Angelenos voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. Until 2022, the city’s mayoral elections were held in off years with lower turnout, which was good for Republicans. In 2022, when popular ex-Republican developer Rick Caruso spent $100 million to run against Bass, he won more votes than any mayoral candidate in decades. Bass beat him by 10 points anyway.
Since then, however, the consensus on Bass is that she hasn’t lived up to her promise; it’s shown up in polls since last year’s devastating wildfires. Homelessness is down, and last year LA counted fewer homicides than in any year since crime began rising in the 1960s. But a striking number of Angelenos never forgave her for traveling to Ghana before the fires, after saying earlier that she “would not travel internationally” if elected.
She’s defined not by her aggressive early moves on homelessness, but by disappointment that she hasn’t done more. The stats say one thing, but the sense of dissatisfaction with Bass’ progress says something else.
And Pratt, who had no political profile before, got an origin story: His Pacific Palisades home burned down in the fires, and he devoted his life to shaming the politicians he blamed for not preventing it.
It’s been 10 years since Hillary Clinton’s “America is already great” message got trashed by a reality TV star who hacked voters’ attention, drew attention to gruesome problems, and promised to solve them instantly.
It’s not a given that Pratt’s Trumpian act will work in LA, but he’s proven one political truth that the sitting president also counts on: Emotion beats data, especially if the data doesn’t jibe with voters’ emotions.
Pratt showed off those emotional-appeal skills in his NBC News debate with Bass and Nithya Raman, the progressive city council member who had been expected to be her toughest challenger. The debate generated good clips for him, no AI required, through framing with yes-or-no questions about major public policy issues.
At one point, each candidate was asked about a proposal to ban homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools. Pratt supported it, Bass supported it, and Raman rambled.
“You know, I support keeping our streets safe,” she said. “I did vote against the structure of this particular ordinance, and it is because, at its best – the way this ordinance was structured, it does not keep – it does not keep our children safe. It does not keep our children safe. It doesn’t keep our children safe enough.”
Pratt put the issue in stark, dystopian terms, amazed that Raman wouldn’t do anything about “drug addicts with machetes in front of schools.”
Democrats are more conflicted about the use of Pratt-style AI imagery in campaigns (especially in Los Angeles, where it is putting neighbors out of business) than Republicans are. But Democrats also know that voters feel that the world has spun out of control.
If they seem to be wringing their hands and worrying about regulation and sensitivity — not making life cheaper and safer, right away — they won’t lose arguments to a reality-TV star. They’ll lose them to the hyperreality he creates.
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Room for Disagreement
Democrats think the Pratt show is a godsend for Bass. Raman has even accused the mayor of “boosting” Pratt to make sure she gets into a runoff she can win.
Bass has denied that, but not very credibly. And polling has shown that if the race goes to a runoff — a very possible outcome, with all three candidates falling short of a majority — Pratt would lose to either Democrat.
Notable
- In LA Material, Maeve Reston talked with Caruso about how candidates could win over the people who wanted him to be mayor.
- In the Free Press, Peter Savodnik spent time with Pratt to see whether he could channel the post-partisan fed-up voter.
- Pratt told TMZ that, contrary to one of his viral campaign ads, he never lived in an airstream trailer following the destruction of his home.