By Samantha Delouya, CNN
(CNN) — A surprisingly competitive mayoral campaign from former reality television star Spencer Pratt has thrust some of Los Angeles’ economic anxieties into the national spotlight ahead of Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary election.
Pratt has built his campaign around frustration with the city’s leadership and direction after the Pacific Palisades home he shared with his wife, fellow “The Hills” co-star Heidi Montag, and their two children was destroyed by the devastating fires that ravaged Los Angeles last year. In viral campaign videos, he has portrayed Los Angeles as poorly managed and struggling to recover from overlapping crises.
The message appears to be resonating: Recent polls show Pratt competitive with Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman and within striking distance of incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
Pratt’s rise comes when many living in the country’s second-largest city grapple with a deep uncertainty about its future.
For more than a century, Los Angeles built a reputation of selling glamour and reinvention. But in recent years, economic pressures have mounted. Housing costs have soared, deepening affordability worries and homelessness. The entertainment industry, one of the city’s defining economic engines, has slowed due to production cutbacks and broader changes in Hollywood. International tourism has fallen sharply, as fear about wildfire destruction and ICE raids across parts of the city has kept more travelers away.
At the same time, recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, has further intensified frustrations around rebuilding, insurance costs and the city government’s response to crises.
Much of Pratt’s campaign has centered on dissatisfaction with the city’s direction and calls to disrupt the political status quo, though he has released fewer detailed policy plans than some rival candidates.
Pratt announced his campaign on the one-year anniversary of the fires and has said he decided to run after growing frustrated with what he describes as government failures that contributed to the scale of the destruction.
A focus on solving the city’s homelessness crisis
The city’s visible homelessness has become a potent symbol of government dysfunction among many LA residents. The issue has been a core tenet of Pratt’s campaign.
There were more than 43,000 people who experienced homelessness on any given night in the city in 2025, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. While homelessness in the city has declined since peaking in 2023, the population of unhoused residents remains roughly 23% higher than it was in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pratt argues that the city “doesn’t have a homelessness problem,” but rather, a drug problem. Many of the city’s homelessness issues would be solved simply by “enforcing the laws” and arresting drug users or bringing them to treatment centers, he has said.
“Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Raman, they think empty beds, they think it’s a housing problem. It’s a drug addiction problem,” Pratt said on CNN’s “The Lead” on Thursday. “Of course, we need to house and find shelter and rehabs for these people, but we need to have mandatory treatment for people that are on drugs.”
The data does not support Pratt’s claims, said Benjamin Henwood, the director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the University of Southern Califo