Spencer Pratt, the villain from MTV's 2006 reality show The Hills — is surging in the polls for Los Angeles mayor, and incumbent Democrat Karen Bass is flatlining so hard somebody should check for a pulse. If you told me five years ago that a reality TV star would be the most credible candidate in America's second-largest city, I'd have laughed. But here we are, and honestly, it makes perfect sense.
Because when you let an entire city burn down and then spend a year and a half doing basically nothing about it and gaslighting people about it, voters tend to look for alternatives. Even if that alternative once got famous for being one of the meanest guy's on cable.
The numbers are brutal for Bass. A new poll from Abundance Network and Tavern Research — surveying 531 likely voters from May 1-4 with a margin of error of +/- 6.1% — shows Bass stuck between 20 and 25 percent support. She's 4 points behind Pratt and 6 points behind Council Member Nithya Raman, which might sound close until you remember she's the sitting mayor. With near universal name recognition. Pollsters called her "the most unpopular Democrat we asked about in our poll" and said she's in an "incredibly weak position for an incumbent with near universal name ID."
That's pollster-speak for "she's toast."
Pratt, meanwhile, has been running a guerrilla-style campaign that's making the political establishment lose their minds. He delivered what observers called a "knockout performance in the first mayoral debate" and has been pumping out viral campaign ads that are actually resonating with frustrated Angelenos across party lines. In deep-blue Los Angeles. As a Republican.
Here's the thing — this isn't really a story about Spencer Pratt being some kind of political genius. It's a story about Karen Bass and LA Democrats being so catastrophically bad at governing that a reality TV personality looks like a serious upgrade. The wildfires ravaged the city, and nearly a year and a half later, homes still haven't been rebuilt. People lost everything, and Bass's response has been the governmental equivalent of a shrug emoji.
You had one job. One. Keep the city from literally burning to the ground and then, when it did, help people rebuild. Bass couldn't manage either part of that assignment, and now she's polling behind the guy who used to throw temper tantrums on MTV for ratings.
The poll averages show Pratt holding a lead with Raman just a half point behind him and Bass trailing both of them. In a city where Republicans are about as common as parking spots, that's not just embarrassing for Democrats — it's an extinction-level event for the LA political machine.
According to The Gateway Pundit, the trend is accelerating. Each new survey shows Pratt gaining ground and Bass losing it. The "insurgent Republican" label that was supposed to be his death sentence in a city that bleeds blue is turning into his biggest asset, because voters have finally figured out that the people who've been running things are the ones who broke everything.
I've said it before and I'll say it again — when voters are mad enough, they don't care about your party affiliation. They care about whether you'll actually do the job. And right now, Spencer Pratt is the guy promising to do the job that Karen Bass proved she couldn't handle.
LA might actually elect a Republican mayor. Because Democrats failed that spectacularly. Somewhere, MTV executives are updating their resumes.
