Spencer Pratt voters left to choose between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman in LA runoff

Former mayoral candidate and reality TV personality Spencer Pratt did not advance to the November runoff election, but still drew a notable share of the vote in the June municipal election. 

Some of his supporters expressed “disappointment”, with a smaller subset alleging a “corrupt” election, despite no evidence being cited to support those claims.

“I am feeling disappointed because I feel the election was illegitimate,” Ron Goldschmidt, a 50-year-old Palisades resident who lost his home in the fires, told The California Post.

“I think that he should stay the course in fighting for a just cause.”

Now, this electorate — a whopping 217,718 people, or 25.5% of the total votes cast for LA mayor — is left choosing between two candidates they described as “not really a choice.”

Incumbent Karen Bass and DSA-backed Nithya Raman are competing to lead the nation’s second-largest city — a nearly $15 billion budget, the LA28 Olympic Game preparations, while also navigating rising immigration tensions and a strained relationship with the federal government.

The Post spoke with roughly two dozen Pratt voters about their candidate’s loss and how they intended to vote in the run-off. 

Conversations with registered Republicans, Democrats, and independents from across the city revealed a segment of the electorate marred by deep distrust in the city’s election institutions, pointed criticism of Bass’s mayoral tenure, and skepticism toward Raman, whom some described as having “communist” tendencies.

Of those conversations, a majority revealed that people are simply not planning to vote in the mayoral race this year, while some said they may cast protest or symbolic votes by writing in Pratt’s name, even though those votes will not be counted.

Only a handful said they would vote for Bass, describing her as the “known devil,” while one voter said they would support Raman — an outlier among Pratt voters.

‘I feel the election was illegitimate’

Goldschmidt, a registered independent, said he is not voting in the runoff for any candidate and plans on leaving the slate blank.

“What’s the point? It’s all corrupt anyways,” he said. “I spoke to a lot of Pratt voters that feel the same way. They’ve all been awakened by what’s coming out in the last couple weeks.”

He was referring to several videos that allege some homeless individuals in Los Angeles’ Skid Row said they were paid small amounts, reportedly $2 to $5, to register or vote for Bass and Raman. While these claims could not be independently verified, the allegations have made Pratt voters skeptical.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

California law allows homeless people to vote if they meet standard requirements, and they can register using a shelter, park, cross streets, or any regular location they stay instead of a traditional address.

“I feel that he should continue fighting and not just give up and move to another state,” Goldschmidt told The Post. “I would understand if he did that, and he said that he might do that.”

Pratt said early in his campaign he would leave the city if he lost, but after his defeat he has instead said he plans to “go to war.” 

He also claimed he has evidence that would force Bass and Raman to resign, referring to them in the video in derogatory terms. The statements were accompanied by clips, memes and AI-generated content as part of his broader narrative about the city — a signature of his campaign style.

Registered Republicans who voted for Pratt are more visibly aggrieved with his loss.

“I honestly might put a big ‘f–k you’ on the ballot. ‘F–k you’ is what I might write,” registered GOP member Richie Varga told The Post of his plans for the November ballot. “I’m really upset. I don’t see how this — how she won. It doesn’t make sense.”

He was referring to Raman, who gained a sizable lead over Pratt, beating him for second place. Pratt overperformed on election night, but Raman, who was eight points behind, gained ground in the days that followed as more mail-in ballots — which tend to lean Democratic — were counted. She holds a lead of nearly 30,000 votes.

“I mean, no one knows who she is. She gave a concession speech on election night. She was so far behind,” Varga said of Raman. “Karen Bass, she’s not a Democratic Socialist, but she’s far left and it doesn’t serve any of my interests.”

“The laws in the city are now just suggestions. They’re suggestions because the laws are not being enforced,” the 55-year-old Angeleno, who was born and raised in the city, said.

Still wishing for Caruso

In 2022, Goldschmidt and Varga voted for real estate mogul and once-registered Republican Rick Caruso, so Pratt to them seemed like a natural choice, given their grievances with Bass and her handling of the fires.

However, the two — along with a wide-ranging number of Pratt voters — wished Caruso would have run again or at least endorsed Pratt to get more centrist Democrats to vote for him.

Caruso officially announced he is not running for Los Angeles mayor in the 2026 election. While he briefly reconsidered joining the race following a news report regarding the Palisades fire after-action report, he ultimately confirmed that his earlier decision to stay out of the race stands.

Bass defeated him in 2022.

A mother-daughter duo who live in Bel Air and Mar Vista and only spoke to The Post anonymously said they voted for Pratt but wished Caruso was an option.

The 61-year-old said she is not voting, while her 33-year-old daughter said she is having her hand forced to vote for Bass because of Raman’s possible path to City Hall. Both were registered Democrats.

At least 10 voters out of the nearly two dozen expressed their frustration that Caruso was not in the race, claiming he would have had an easy win over Bass.

“I’m a very big Caruso fan. I really love Rick Caruso. He’s an amazing businessman. He’s a great family man. The man is always dressed. We want someone like that,” one voter told The Post.

Sixty-one-year-old Kenyatta Cole is among the dissuaded Democrats who bet on Pratt. He bonded with Pratt’s campaign out of deep personal compassion for the victims of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena wildfires — which he worked on as a trucker — and shared a frustration with City Hall’s bureaucracy.

“We were trying to put our support behind somebody that we thought wanted some of the things that we wanted, and that was Pratt because he was the common man. I mean, he wasn’t talking like a politician. You know? I mean, it was all common sense,” he told The Post.

Cole previously voted for Karen Bass in 2022 but feels completely betrayed by her administration’s handling of infrastructure funding. He plans to sit the election out.

“At this point, I don’t. I don’t plan on voting. The system is crooked,” he said. “I don’t even know how she [Nithya Raman] made it to the City Council. You know, I don’t think there’s a nickel difference between her and Mayor Bass.”

Going into the election cycle, Bass enjoyed low approval ratings.

Over half of Los Angeles voters — 56% — had an unfavorable view of the mayor in a March Los Angeles Times poll. That number is even higher among Pratt voters.

Choosing the lesser evil

While most said they were sitting this one out, others expressed such strong disapproval of Bass that they are willing to pivot toward an even more left-leaning candidate.

“Unfortunately, if I’m going to have to choose between those two, I’m unfortunately going to have to choose Raman. And I don’t want to. And the reason why is only because Bassura has had her chance and she failed. She failed everybody,” Alex Hemat, a 50-year-old registered Republican, told The Post.

His mindset was that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and Raman’s 11th-hour campaign against former ally Bass — whom she endorsed and campaigned for in 2022 — serves that purpose. But Hemat is well aware of Raman’s progressive policies; the vote would be more an act of defiance.

“She is the best of the Basuras,” he said.

In Spanish, “basura” means garbage, trash or rubbish, and Hemat has coined Bass’s name with the Spanish word.

Since her victory, Raman has sought to appeal to Pratt voters and initially acknowledged that she understood why people supported him.

“I know many people in this city voted for Spencer Pratt, who gave voice to the fear and anger so many in this city are feeling right now,” she said. “I don’t think Spencer Pratt was the candidate LA needed in this moment, but I understand why he was able to cultivate support.”

While older voters The Post spoke with tended to lean toward abstaining altogether, younger millennials said they would prefer to vote for Bass over Raman, ensuring their ballots are at least counted.

“I haven’t really seen anything from the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] party platform that’s realistic or focuses on actual problems. Again, it’s a lot of the kind of, like, you know, demonization, virtue signaling,” 44-year-old Tara Avery, who has lived in LA for more than a decade, told the Post.

“Obviously, the reality of it is, writing in a candidate is kind of like a lost cause. It’s not going to do anything. So I have to kind of make a decision if I write in a candidate to prove a point or if I make the decision to vote for Karen Bass just to keep Raman out,” she added.

She said she was leaning toward Bass and was disappointed that Pratt did not make it through, though she had expected that outcome.

“While he’s not necessarily a candidate that I would intentionally seek out, him running to me represented a departure from the direction that we’ve been going in,” Avery added.