Spencer Pratt's LA Mayor Dreams Slip Away as Raman Surges

It’s not looking good for Spencer Pratt’s mayoral ambitions in Los Angeles. The Hills alum, who boldly promised to leave the city if he didn’t win, has tumbled from second place to third as vote counting continues this week.

With 83.2% of expected votes tallied as of Sunday, City Council member Nithya Raman has pulled ahead of Pratt with 27.1% of the vote to his 26.7%. Incumbent Karen Bass remains firmly in the lead and has already been projected to advance to November’s runoff election. The race for that crucial second spot—which would keep Pratt’s candidacy alive—is now coming down to the wire, with mail-in ballots postmarked by election day still being counted through a seven-day window.

What started as confidence has shifted to something else entirely. Last week, Pratt posted a photo with his wife Heidi Montag captioned“LA is coming back,”projecting the swagger of a frontrunner. But as the gap narrowed and Raman pulled ahead, he pivoted to insinuation. He shared a Russell Crowe meme from A Beautiful Mind about trying to figure out vote counting, posted cryptic messages suggesting fishy business with comments like“We have until July 6th to keep counting. They’re not the only ones who know how to find votes,”and even implied the city’s 43,699 unhoused residents somehow explained the swing in votes against him. It’s a familiar playbook when trailing candidates watch their lead evaporate.

The real story here isn’t Spencer’s conspiracy theories—it’s that he managed to be a serious contender at all. Voter turnout in this year’s primaries hit just 32% of eligible voters, a historically low number that made the field wide open for unconventional candidates. In that landscape, a reality TV personality with name recognition and deep pockets could actually compete. But as more votes get counted, as they always do in Los Angeles, the math isn’t working in his favor.

Whether those final 16.8% of votes get him back into second place remains to be seen, but his posture suggests he already knows the answer. The question now is whether he’ll actually follow through on his promise to leave LA—or if that was just campaign rhetoric that dies with his mayoral dreams.