Donald Trump wanted a win in Los Angeles. He didn’t get one.
Spencer Pratt, the MAGA-backed candidate who dominated headlines and social media couldn’t break through in deep-blue Los Angeles. Instead, voters set up a showdown between the city’s embattled incumbent and a progressive challenger promising major change.
Pratt, a reality TV star-turned-mayoral candidate who embraced support from Trump and conservative allies, failed to advance from the Los Angeles mayoral primary, ending one of the most heavily hyped campaigns of the race.
Instead, voters delivered a very different result.
Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass will now face progressive City Councilmember Nithya Raman in November, setting up a runoff that reflects growing frustration with the city’s political status quo while shutting the door on a MAGA-backed outsider bid.
For all the attention Pratt generated, the reality was harder to overcome.
Los Angeles is still Los Angeles.
And a Republican candidate aligned with Trump was always facing an uphill battle in a city where only a small percentage of voters are registered Republicans.
Still, Pratt’s failure to advance is a notable setback for Trump and his political brand.
The former reality television personality became a conservative media favorite after launching a campaign centered on anger over the devastating 2025 wildfires. He attracted national attention, generated viral content, and raised millions of dollars. Supporters even circulated AI-generated videos portraying him as a superhero battling the city’s political establishment.
In the end, it wasn’t enough.
Despite all the headlines, all the social media buzz, and all the money, Los Angeles voters chose a different path.
Now the race becomes something much more consequential.
Bass, whose political standing was badly damaged by criticism of her response to the wildfires, will face a challenger from her left rather than from the right.
That’s where the story gets interesting.
Raman has built her campaign around the argument that City Hall isn’t working for ordinary residents. She has criticized what she describes as a system that prioritizes powerful interests while leaving working people behind.
“For too long, City Hall has prioritized giving political advantage to powerful interests that fund elections,” Raman said after the race was called.
It’s a message that appears to be resonating.
A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found Raman leading Bass in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, an alarming sign for an incumbent already struggling with low approval ratings.
And the numbers tell a broader story.
Bass is the first Los Angeles mayoral incumbent in two decades to be forced into a runoff. Her favorability ratings have yet to recover from the wildfire crisis, while Raman enters the general election with significantly stronger standing among voters.
The wild part is that many observers expected Bass to cruise to reelection after several higher-profile challengers declined to enter the race.
Instead, she now faces a progressive opponent who has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to outperform expectations.
Meanwhile, Trump’s preferred candidate is headed home.
For all the talk about conservative momentum, all the viral videos, and all the media attention, Los Angeles voters ultimately passed on the MAGA experiment.
Now the city’s future will be decided in a contest between an embattled incumbent and a progressive challenger who believes City Hall needs a complete reset.
