Anger was in the air on Jan. 7, 2026, the one-year anniversary of the Palisades Fire.
A large crowd gathered at Swarthmore Avenue and Antioch Street in the Pacific Palisades, in front of the burned shell of the historic Business Block building for a rally called “They Let Us Burn.” Spencer Pratt, the reality TV bad boy everyone loved to hate when he was on “The Hills” in the late 2000s, stood at the podium, one of several speakers.
Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag — together known to reality TV fans as Speidi — had lost their home in the fire. It was one of 7,000 commercial and residential properties destroyed.
“We all cope with loss differently,” Pratt said to the crowd. “I coped with mine by eating burritos and putting every ounce of energy into uncovering the truth, and the dirty facts I’ve uncovered this year will completely blow you away.”
He then announced that he’d be running for Los Angeles mayor in a bid to unseat Mayor Karen Bass. The primary is June 2, and the field is crowded, with 14 candidates certified by the city clerk to run. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two will advance to a runoff in the November general election.
At the rally, mere mention of Bass elicited boos; many residents are furious about how local and state leaders handled the fires and are looking for an alternative on the ballot.
At first, while Pratt’s announcement filled the news cycle, some beyond the Palisades wondered if the former MTV villain and masterful social media troll had it in him to run a successful campaign.
Kambiz Kamdar is a longtime local builder who runs Pali Construction and co-founded the site Pali Builds, which tracks building permits, property sales and construction trends across the Palisades as it rebuilds. He was at the rally. Pratt’s announcement hardly registered.
“There were rumblings about him running for some office,” Kamdar said. “It was your normal reaction when you see a reality television personality running for an office. I didn’t really have a reaction either way.”
The made-for-television plot twist came from the polls.
Two polls and recent fundraising totals suggested that by late April, Pratt was running in second place, ahead of the more experienced Fourth District Councilmember and Democratic Socialists of America member Nithya Raman, Democrat and businessman Adam Miller and another DSA candidate, Rae Chen Huang.
The University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs survey showed 11 percent support for Pratt, and 25 percent support for Bass. An earlier survey conducted by Emerson College Polling also had Pratt second behind Bass, with 10 percent for Pratt and the incumbent at 20 percent.
“On the other hand, he doesn’t know what he can’t do, and that might mean he accomplishes change that no one believed was possible.”
Though Bass has raised more than her challengers (see: “Follow the Money” sidebar), campaign finance data for the most recent reporting period showed Pratt outpacing Bass and Raman in donations raised between Jan. 1 and April 18. (Counting loans to one’s own campaign, Miller would surpass them all.)
Many observers view the polls as an indication that the race is wide open, with no clear frontrunner and an all-but-certain November runoff between the primary’s top two candidates.
Some of the supporters Pratt’s gained since the January announcement are in the real estate industry. Apartment developer Geoff Palmer was set as of press time to hold a reception at his Beverly Hills home for the candidate on April 28, according to a campaign communication filed with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. Requests for comment to Palmer and his company G.H. Palmer Associates were not responded to. A disclosure filed with the city ethics commission showed that a Michael Meldman with Discovery Land Company donated to Pratt’s campaign, but a Discovery Land spokesperson called the information inaccurate and said Meldman, the company’s founder, did not contribute. There’s also support from Westside Estate Agency co-founder and one of the market’s top high-end agents Kurt Rappaport, Beverly Hills Estates’ Jacqueline Chernov and others in residential real estate.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, a former Angeleno, hosted Pratt on April 15 and said he’d vote for him if he hadn’t moved to Texas. Rogan, who endorsed President Donald Trump in November 2024, claims he is a political independent. California gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Hilton, the former host of “The Next Revolution” on Fox News, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, both Republicans, have thrown their support behind Pratt too. In L.A., elections for mayor and city council are nonpartisan. Pratt is a registered Republican.
Leaving the bubble
Pratt had not considered running for mayor until the fire.
“We in the Palisades had long been sheltered from most of the blight that cripples much of the city,” Pratt, whose schedule did not allow for a phone interview, wrote in an email. “Conversely, much of the city is sheltered from the rapid destruction that we in the Palisades endured.”
He doesn’t only condemn the government’s response to the fire. He reads it as a warning. The fire “was like a time lapse of what’s to come for the rest of L.A., and I feel like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] in ‘Terminator 2,’ being sent from the future to warn Angelenos of what is coming for them if they continue with the crazy socialists who took over city government.”
In the 2000s, “Laguna Beach” made star Lauren Conrad a celebrity, and the spin-off, “The Hills,” which launched in 2006, did the same for Montag and Pratt. Though the show was technically unscripted, Pratt’s role was manipulator, getting between cast members and their family and friends. He played to fans by being self-aware about being the villain.
In one scene, his friend Charlie Smith tries to get Pratt to calm down over family drama.
“You’re so chill, you don’t see what people are doing,” Pratt tells Smith.
“And you do, and it makes you miserable,” Smith comes back.
Toward the end of the show’s run, Pratt became interested in the idea that crystals were healing. “That’s why I’m trying to keep [my anger] in my crystals,” he tells Smith in that same scene.
Son of a “surfing dentist” who grew up in the Palisades, Pratt is a University of Southern California graduate who majored in political science. He has had a few post-“Hills” TV jobs, including “Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars” and “The Hills: New Beginnings,” a reboot of the original. In 2009, after Montag suffered some health problems, he discovered sugilite, “a rare purple mineral that emanates peace and beauty,” and launched Pratt Daddy Crystals, a jewelry line centered around crystals. He and Montag bought a home in the Palisades and had two sons.
Despite the new-agey trappings, he described himself as “old school” and said he hailed from “more dignified times,” keeping political talk to his wife and close friends, rather than making it public or part of his identity.
Then came the fire. Pratt immersed himself in what had gone wrong with the municipal response, from fire department budget shortfalls to lack of brush clearing to the empty Santa Ynez Reservoir. In late January 2025, he and Montag filed a lawsuit with property owners, tenants and others impacted by the Palisades Fire against several defendants, including the city of Los Angeles.
“They burned my house down,” he told Rogan. “They burned my mom’s house down. They put me in the game. And once the bubble’s gone, all I have is this energy to stop this.”
All for L.A.
Pratt is especially sour on Mayor Bass and the DSA members on the city council.
He refers to her as “Karen Basura” and posted an animation on social media of him wheeling Bass out in a dumpster to the song “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” (the misspelling a riff off “Bass”).
An Instagram post touted Pratt’s latest Substack post critiquing the city’s response to its drug problem and was set to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Pratt has repeatedly referred to those on drugs in Skid Row and other parts of the city as zombies, arguing L.A.’s drug problem has been conflated with housing and homelessness issues.
But between bashing DSAs and incumbents, he talks tough on real estate industry pain points. Where he’s short on specifics, he’s long on the belief that an L.A. mayor can make changes that wins back real estate.
“This is one of the places where the [mayor’s] office has real authority and Karen Bass has refused to use it. Look at the fire rebuilding,” he said, pointing to promises of streamlined permitting that have so far resulted in few completions.
“The mayor appoints the planning commission. The mayor appoints leadership at building and safety. The mayor sets the tone for whether this is a city that wants to build or a city that wants to talk about wanting to build,” Pratt said.
On Measure United to House L.A., the city’s tax on all real property starting at $5.3 million, he plans to exempt anyone rebuilding from the fire.
In that, he is in line with his biggest rival, Bass, who urged the city council last October to pass an exemption for Palisades property owners. Raman recently proposed a 15-year carveout from the tax on new multifamily, commercial and mixed-use projects. Asked if he supported either opponent’s proposal, he shifted to a critique heard from both residential and commercial sides of the aisle when it comes to overall accountability on how the tax revenue, which is earmarked for housing and homelessness programs, is being spent. If he were mayor, he’d bring in the Internal Revenue Service “to rip the lid off where this money went,” he said.
He also sympathized with mom-and-pop apartment landlords who say rent caps and tenant protections aimed at addressing affordability have stymied their livelihoods.
Pratt’s rhetoric comes down hard on squatters, although he didn’t talk specifics on policy reversals. That includes one of the more recent, which passed late last year, when the city council capped rent increases under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance to between 1 percent and 4 percent. The previous minimum and maximum were 3 percent and 8 percent.
He’s also focused on cleaning up the city and points to the success of San Francisco under Mayor Daniel Lurie as a goalpost.
“I’ve met with a lot of people that have real estate in Los Angeles and they have real estate in San Francisco,” Pratt said on Rogan. “Mayor Lurie came in and he started enforcing the law … and he has cleaned up the city pretty well.”
“Again, I’m going whole next level because I’m not concerned about optics, not concerned about ‘Oh Spencer’s doing this, he’s so mean.’”
‘Push the reset button’
Los Angeles is a city of nearly 4 million people, and Pratt’s campaign has to resonate beyond Palisades Fire survivors to the rest of a geographically disconnected area.
That is a challenge for all the candidates, and the lack of a clear frontrunner might just reflect the electorate’s scattered views.
“It’s just feeling diluted,” Paul Lester, co-founder at The Agency, said.
Lester said he and his peers register uncertainty from their buyers and sellers about whether they should stay or leave the state. They attribute this, in part, to the lack of a strong political voice among those seeking to fill the mayoral seat, he said.
“There’s a lot of people in the race, but right now it remains to be seen whether any of them remain cohesive enough in capturing a larger share of voters,” Lester said. “There are various moments in people’s campaigns that do appeal to the real estate community, but it’s not all coming from one [candidate]. There are issues of homelessness. There are issues of affordability. There are issues in rebuilding. It would be smart for one of those people to speak to all of these things cohesively.”
Most real estate groups aren’t yet sold on one candidate.
The National Association of Office and Industrial Properties Southern California declined comment for this story. A spokesperson for the Greater Los Angeles Realtors said the group would not endorse anyone until after the primaries. One group has made its preference clear: the California Apartment Association Political Action Committee, which donated to Bass in April.
“[Still], right now, what everybody’s united in is dissatisfaction with Karen Bass,” said Mott Smith, an adjunct professor of real estate at the University of Southern California Price School and chair of the Council of Infill Builders.
“I feel like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] in ‘Terminator 2,’ being sent from the future to warn Angelenos of what is coming for them if they continue with the crazy socialists who took over city government.”
Pratt could be the “push the reset button on the whole thing” candidate, Smith added.
“I also still believe that if he wins it will be a double-edged sword: On the one hand, he doesn’t have any experience pulling the levers of power in this city, and that could mean he accomplishes very little,” he said. “On the other hand, he doesn’t know what he can’t do, and that might mean he accomplishes change that no one believed was possible.”
In informal conversations, Smith has found that others in the industry “wouldn’t be so upset to roll the dice and see what happens” with Pratt given “few believe things could get much worse.”
Still, some have cast Pratt’s personal political affiliation in a mostly Democratic town as problematic. He said he sees no place in local politics for partisanship, adding “I’m not running against a political party.”
Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, said Pratt did not request an endorsement from the group, but she herself will be voting for him.
“Party affiliation isn’t on the ballot, and the last time the city of L.A. was safe, clean and fun was under [Republican] Mayor Richard Riordan. [Party affiliation] is not a liability,” she said.
Some might argue Riordan and Pratt aren’t comparable. Others, such as Hoge, may see more similarities than differences.
Riordan campaigned on the slogan “Tough Enough to Turn L.A. Around.” When he was elected in 1993, the city was coming off the prior year’s Los Angeles riots, rising crime and a slumping economy. While social media and the trolling that runs rampant in politics today didn’t exist during Riordan’s time, instilling a general sense of order and accountability would be the overarching theme of Pratt’s campaign.
Terminator
Pratt has a way of speaking plainly but forcefully at a time when voters are fed up, whether about potholes in the street and downtown’s stalled Oceanwide Plaza, the half-completed, bankrupt three-building project in the heart of downtown, or the handling of the Palisades Fire.
“I think his message is resonating because our current leadership doesn’t openly acknowledge how horrendously managed our city is, and Spencer calls it out in plain English,” said Frank Renfro, a Palisades resident and the other co-founder of Pali Builds. “It’s so frighteningly obvious that the city chooses not to solve huge problems. It’s actually comical.”
Some would have preferred a more buttoned-up option in the form of developer Rick Caruso, who at one time considered a second run.
“He would have been a strong and experienced leader,” Mariam Engel, who helms the Palisades Fire Residents Coalition, said. One of the January rally’s organizers, Engel said her group’s endorsement is limited to 11th District Councilmember Traci Park.
Others are less reserved. Pratt’s sister, Stephanie Pratt, in February posted on X that her brother was running only to stay famous and that voters should steer clear of him.
Pratt paints a dire picture for the city if a new mayor doesn’t shake things up. With him, maybe L.A. gets a Hollywood ending.
He calls his bid for mayor his “come with me if you want to live” moment, Schwarzenegger’s line in “Terminator 2” as he rescued Linda Hamilton’s character, Sarah Connor, from Pescadero State Hospital.
In California politics, someone from Hollywood toppling the political establishment isn’t so farfetched. Californians replaced Gov. Gray Davis in a 2003 recall election with Schwarzenegger. Before him, there was Ronald Reagan, who served two terms as governor before going on to the U.S. presidency.
Pratt said he’s not angling for more beyond mayor. He thinks of himself more like George Washington or Roman general Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, “a citizen servant who comes to fix things, then goes back to the farm.”
In Pratt’s case, that means turning around city hall.
“Then,” he said, “I’m going back home to coach Little League.”
