Michael Kosta mocks Spencer Pratt's surprising Los Angeles mayoral surge

Michael Kosta turned Spencer Pratt’s Los Angeles mayoral surge into a punch line, saying the former MTV star had “got a second-season pickup” after Tuesday’s midterms. The joke resonated because Pratt, once known for The Hills, had moved beyond celebrity novelty and into a race that now carried real consequences for City Hall.

Pratt announced his run for mayor of Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2026, after frustration with the city’s handling of the Palisades Fire pushed him toward politics. A recent poll put him at 22 percent among likely voters, just behind Mayor Karen Bass at 26 percent and City Councilmember Nithya Raman at 25 percent, keeping alive the possibility of a November runoff.

When Pratt entered the race, he said Los Angeles was “fundamentally broken” and that he wanted to “take real action.” He also promised to fight for Angelenos and make the city “camera ready” again, a message that leaned on practical governance while still carrying the unmistakable branding of a television personality who understood how public attention works.

That tension helped explain why Pratt’s candidacy drew such intense reaction from celebrities and commentators. Some mocked the campaign outright, while others argued over whether fame should count as political experience at all. The debate went deeper than one candidate’s profile: it reflected a city electorate willing to consider an outsider from reality television because traditional politics had failed to reassure enough voters.

In that sense, Pratt’s rise was less a novelty than a warning shot. Karen Bass still led the field, but the numbers showed a fragmented race in which name recognition, frustration with city leadership and dissatisfaction with the status quo could reshape a mayoral contest that was supposed to reward institutional experience. The former reality star’s momentum suggested that in Los Angeles, celebrity no longer sat outside politics. It was competing with it.