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Spencer Pratt, an ex-reality TV star, cast himself as the antidote to Los Angeles’s woes as he campaigned to be the city’s next mayor.

He curried favor with swaths of disillusioned voters who related to his diatribes against city leadership. His fervent social media posts, including re-shares of AI-generated campaign ads showing LA in an apocalyptic light, garnered national attention.

But when voters got to the polls, ultimately the online virality was not enough to boost a registered Republican, who is best known for his villainous turn on MTV’s The Hills and has zero experience in governing, in a deep blue city embroiled in debate over its future.

Progressive city councilor Nithya Raman edged out Pratt, according to results called by the Associated Press on Monday night. Raman will face incumbent Karen Bass in November’s race.

Pratt has not yet conceded the election. In a break from his usually prolific online presence, he’s issued few remarks about the election on social media since Tuesday, save for an X post where he suggested without evidence that Raman rounded up a cohort of unhoused people to vote for her.

Donald Trump, who backed Pratt’s bid, has offered up his own assessment on the race and California primaries at large: “crooked”. The state’s slow ballot-counting process has drawn unfounded conspiracies from the right about voter fraud.

But Pratt, who first appeared on Americans’ TV screens in the late aughts as Heidi Montag’s infamously bad boyfriend on The Hills, had been set for an uphill battle on several fronts.

For one, his lack of government experience drew questions about his exact plans for the city. He was quick to dismiss concerns about his capability.

“I’m a lifelong Angeleno who’s seen my home city waste away under poor leadership. THAT is my experience,” he recently said on social media.

Pratt, who said he voted for Trump in 2024, was also running in a largely Democratic city.

Los Angeles has not been led by a Republican since Richard Riordan, the former mayor who served from 1993 to 2001. The endorsement from Trump, who is deeply unpopular among Los Angeles voters, was also viewed as a hindrance.

On the campaign trail, he largely distanced himself from partisan allegiances and emphasized that the election for Los Angeles mayor is nonpartisan. He focused his attacks on city leadership, tapping into sources of resentment beyond party lines.

Before last year, Pratt was an unlikely candidate for mayor. Born to a dentist and a homemaker in the Pacific Palisades, he was best known for his reality TV antics and as a tabloid fixture, with covers documenting his wedding and his relationship with now-wife Montag. But the public perception of Pratt softened in recent years as he shared self-deprecating jokes on social media and frequently posted adoringly about the hummingbirds outside his home.

In January 2025, Pratt was one of thousands of Angelenos to lose their homes in the deadly wildfires that tore through the city. He shared emotional videos showing the remnants of his destroyed home in the Palisades and the toll of displacement on him, his wife and their two small children.

Pratt frequently amplified the challenges faced by fire victims, and soon became one of the most visible and vocal critics of the city’s response to the disaster and Bass’s leadership. He argued that Los Angeles did not do enough to prepare for the fire and was falling short in helping residents with recovery.

He launched his campaign for mayor in January, putting wildfire frustrations front and center, while also harnessing anger over long-standing issues in the city, including the cost-of-living crisis and an enduring homelessness emergency.

Polling has found that the majority of Los Angeles residents feel the city is headed in the wrong direction. Los Angeles remains one of the most expensive cities in the US, and is short 270,000 affordable housing units.

While Bass has overseen a 17.5% reduction in people living on the streets, many Angelenos remain frustrated at the staggering scale of the crisis with nearly 44,000 unhoused people in the city.

According to the Associated Press, as of Monday, Pratt had secured 25.8% of the vote, trailing behind Raman, who received 28.6% and Bass, who was at 34.3%.

“It says something – or should say something – to leaders of Los Angeles that roughly a third of the city’s voters are so unhappy with life as it is that they are willing to back a patently absurd candidate to run the place,” Jim Newton, a veteran Los Angeles journalist, wrote last week in a column for CalMatters.

Pratt’s campaign underperformed in comparison to Rick Caruso, a Republican real estate mogul, who lost to Bass in the 2022 mayoral race. Caruso, at that time, received about 36% of votes in the primary.

Raman and Bass, former allies, will square off in a race regarded as a symbol of internal tensions roiling the Democratic party – veteran, center-left Democrats being challenged by younger, progressive candidates. Raman is a Democratic socialist.

It’s unclear whether Pratt’s political ambitions will continue. He vowed to leave the city if he lost the race. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his next chapter.