From Reality TV to the Ballot: Spencer Pratt's Unlikely Political Rise

Spencer Pratt just made it to a Los Angeles mayoral runoff, and TV host Billy Bush is drawing a surprising parallel: the reality star reminds him of Barack Obama.

On Tuesday, June 2, after Pratt’s strong showing in the city’s primary election, Bush spoke to Los Angeles’ABC affiliate outside the candidate’s election night celebration. According to the results, incumbent Karen Bass was leading with 34.8 percent of votes to Pratt’s 30.4 percent—with only 63 percent of ballots counted as of Wednesday, June 3. The race is headed to a November runoff between the two.

What’s got Bush impressed isn’t Pratt’s political resume—he has none. It’s his ability to connect.“He’s a manifester,”Bush said.“He thinks he’s closing 50 percent tonight [and] that would be a small miracle at this point, but it looks to me like, better than not, it will be Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt going through the summer and into the fall.”Bush credited Pratt’s gift for communication, comparing the moment to the last time a“community organizer bring hope and excitement to a large populous”in the way Pratt has done—pointing back to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

For context: Pratt, 42, announced his mayoral bid in January on a platform centered around supporting the unhoused population and wildfire recovery efforts—issues that hit close to home. He and his wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the January 2025 wildfires, as did Pratt’s parents. When he announced his candidacy in front of thousands of fire victims, the response was overwhelming.“Everyone cheered so much that it kicked off a new path of being taken seriously,”Pratt told Us Weekly in an exclusive interview last month.

In that same conversation, Pratt laid out his case with refreshing candor:“My No. 1 qualification is I’m not corrupt. I have humility in that I know that I’ve never run a city, so I’m going to put a team around me of the smartest, most talented people.”He went on to explain that he plans to bring in private sector leadership—people from major corporations with bigger budgets—to advise the city and make it more profitable.“My biggest skill is being an actual outsider,”he said.

Whether Pratt can translate outsider appeal into actual governance remains to be seen. But as he heads into a summer and fall campaign against an incumbent, one thing’s clear: the man who rose to fame on reality TV has managed to make himself impossible to dismiss in one of America’s biggest political races.