Spencer Pratt Is Going to the Runoff. Karen Bass Has Five Months to Explain Herself.

Let’s be honest about what happened in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, with endorsements from Governor Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, running in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a wide margin, couldn’t break 35% in her own primary. That’s not a victory. That’s a warning.

Bass finished first — which matters, and which she’ll remind everyone of between now and November. But roughly three out of five Los Angeles voters chose someone else. Spencer Pratt, the former “Hills” cast member best known for tabloid drama and reality television, finished second with around 30%. The two are now headed toward a general election runoff that nobody in the political establishment believed possible six months ago.

Pratt isn’t a conventional candidate, and that’s been the whole point. His home burned in the Palisades Fire. He’s been relentless on social media and in local media, using viral moments, AI-generated videos, and a running commentary on Bass’s record to build an audience that converted into actual votes. Trump endorsed him. Billy Bush was at his election night party. He held his gathering at a Mexican restaurant, kept reporters out, and blocked the windows with black curtains. You couldn’t make it up.

But beneath the spectacle, there’s a real accountability question here. Los Angeles is facing a nearly $1 billion budget gap. Homelessness remains the city’s defining crisis. The Palisades Fire recovery has moved slowly, and residents who lost homes have been vocal about their frustration with the pace of rebuilding and the adequacy of the city’s response. Bass was in Africa when the fires broke out — a fact that followed her throughout the campaign.

None of that makes Spencer Pratt qualified to run the second-largest city in the United States. That’s a different question entirely. But it does explain why a reality television personality from a show that ended over a decade ago is now five months away from potentially being mayor of Los Angeles.

City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who challenged Bass from the left and had strong support among progressive voters, sits in third place with about 22%. There are still ballots to count, but the margins suggest Pratt’s spot in November is likely to hold.

Bass was the first Los Angeles mayor to be forced into a runoff since 2005, when James Hahn finished second in the primary and ultimately lost to Antonio Villaraigosa. History doesn’t repeat. But it does occasionally rhyme.

The question now is whether Karen Bass can make this race about her record — or whether Spencer Pratt can keep making it about her failures. Judging by Tuesday night, he already has a five-month head start.