Spencer Pratt, running for Los Angeles mayor, brushes off Mamdani comparisons

Spencer Pratt is trying to turn celebrity into a governing argument, but he says the Mamdani comparison misses the point. The former reality TV star, now running for Los Angeles mayor, has cast himself as an outsider with “common sense” who can “shake up city hall” after wildfire loss and years of voter frustration with how the city is run.

Pratt entered the race on Jan. 7 at the “They Let Us Burn” rally in Palisades Village, where about 1,000 demonstrators gathered after the Palisades Fire destroyed his home. He has made wildfire response, homelessness, street lighting and public safety the center of his campaign. CBS has reported that Pratt is polling second, a notable position in a city where the mayor’s office has been held by Democrats for years and where Los Angeles has not elected a Republican mayor since Richard Riordan won in 1993 and served two terms.

The contest is formally nonpartisan and heads first to the Primary Nominating Election on June 2. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two finishers advance to the General Municipal Election on Nov. 3. A UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs poll cited by CBS Los Angeles put Mayor Karen Bass at 25 percent, Pratt at 11 percent, City Councilmember Nithya Raman at 9 percent and 40 percent undecided, a sign that the race remains unsettled even with the election nearing.

Pratt’s campaign has also run into a basic question of eligibility and place. Los Angeles candidates must be registered city voters and residents since at least Jan. 3, 2026. After the fire, Pratt moved to Santa Barbara, prompting the Los Angeles Times to question whether he was still living within city limits. Pratt rejected that scrutiny publicly, treating it as a hit piece rather than a substantive challenge to his candidacy.

The Mamdani parallel is useful because it points to a broader pattern in big-city politics. Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City mayor on Jan. 1, 2026, after winning the 2025 election with 1,114,184 votes, or 50.8 percent, the most for any New York mayoral candidate in more than 50 years. At 34, he became the city’s first Muslim mayor and first mayor of South Asian descent, and he ran on freezing rent, eliminating bus fares and providing universal child care.

Mamdani’s early agenda has continued to lean into affordability and child care expansion. Pratt is not offering the same ideology, and he remains a long shot in a heavily Democratic city. But both men have benefited from the same political opening: voters willing to look past conventional resumes, reward social-media fluency and test whether an outsider can convert anger at the status quo into actual authority.