All that’s left of Adam Wolman’s house is a garden wall. Revisiting his old neighborhood near Los Angeles recently, the creative consultant and former TV executive pulled up to the spot where he lived for over 25 years. The house had just been through a two-year renovation when it burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire in January of last year. Now, it’s an empty lot.
Mr. Wolman’s story is similar to more than 13,000 others’ in Los Angeles County. They include Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star who has channeled frustrations over the city’s fire prevention and rebuilding efforts, as well as problems like homelessness and drug addiction, into a surging dark-horse campaign for mayor of Los Angeles.
Mr. Pratt’s messaging – around Los Angeles’ decline and the political establishment’s alleged complicity – has been amplified by a series of provocative AI videos circulating on social media. Many of the videos, which are not official products of his campaign (though Mr. Pratt often reposts them), don’t focus on his proposed policies or his background, but instead lean in to storytelling.
Why We Wrote This
Los Angeles last had a Republican mayor 25 years ago. But reality TV star Spencer Pratt has seen a flurry of donations and support in the run-up to the June 2 vote, in a campaign shaped by last year’s Palisades Fire and a series of provocative AI videos.
One portrays the candidate as a Batman-like figure rescuing a burning, dystopian Los Angeles from a cabal of villains represented by LA Mayor Karen Bass (in Joker makeup), California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and former Vice President Kamala Harris. As the Democratic politicians enjoy a decadent meal in a Versailles-like setting, a man who looks like the actor Hugh Jackman pleads, “I just want to rebuild my home. It’s been over a year.” The politicians all laugh.
The unconventional videos, combined with Mr. Pratt’s own blunt-spoken style, appear to be catching on with at least some voters who’ve grown weary of politics as usual and are looking to shake up the status quo. Recent polls show the Republican running behind Mayor Bass by anywhere from 14 to just 3 points in this heavily Democratic city. If no candidate surpasses 50% in the June 2 primary, which seems likely, he has a shot at being one of two who advance to November’s election. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a progressive Democrat, is also in contention in most polls.
Even if Mr. Pratt doesn’t win, strategists say his campaign has broken new ground – providing a clear example of how artificial intelligence can reshape political communication.
“It’s a watershed moment,” says Crystal Patterson, a Democratic strategist who previously worked at Facebook. “The LA mayor’s race is going to be a really good litmus test for what this kind of new frontier in digital means for voters and how they’re consuming information.”
Experts have long worried that AI could wreak havoc on political campaigns, by amplifying disinformation and making it hard for voters to know what’s real and what’s fake. For now, those fears haven’t played out. Most of the pro-Pratt videos are obviously fake – and come across more as an edgy form of entertainment.
“The whole point is to drive attention and to drive conversation,” says Scott Babwah Brennen, director of New York University’s Center on Technology Policy. Videos depicting candidates as characters from a movie franchise might not change many voters’ minds, he says, but it can create the kind of buzz that’s helpful for fundraising and mobilization. Indeed, Mr. Pratt is far outraising Ms. Bass and Ms. Raman, reporting a haul nearly 10 times that of the mayor’s in the last campaign finance reporting period.
Many of the AI videos have been shared by an X account under the name Charles Curran, a filmmaker who owns a studio in Los Angeles and experiments with AI in his own creative work. He and the Pratt campaign did not respond to interview requests.
Los Angeles last had a Republican mayor 25 years ago, when the share of Republican voters in the city was greater than it is now. After President Donald Trump recently said he heard that Mr. Pratt was “a big MAGA person,” both Ms. Bass’ and Ms. Raman’s campaigns have worked to link the two Republican reality TV stars-turned-politicians. Mr. Pratt has downplayed his party affiliation on the campaign trail, presumably recognizing that associating himself strongly with the GOP brand hurts more than it helps in Los Angeles.
The crux of the race, for all the candidates, is the aftermath of the fires. Mr. Pratt accuses Ms. Bass of poor leadership, which he says left the city unprepared for the wildfires that wiped out neighborhoods in 2025.
The mayor faced widespread criticism over her absence from the city while on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fires broke out. And a major reservoir in Los Angeles was empty, leaving firefighters without water in the early days. In the Pacific Palisades, the fire burned over 23,000 acres.
“I don’t know of anybody who says the mayor did a good job [handling] the fires,” says Matt Klink, an LA-based Republican strategist. Criticism of the city’s response is part of the reason Mr. Pratt’s campaign is drawing so much attention, he says. “He’s touching on something that everybody acknowledges is real.”
Some of Mr. Pratt’s campaign ads feature him standing in front of an Airstream trailer. “This is where I live. They let my home burn down,” he says in one. (According to media reports, he has been residing, at least some of the time, at the Hotel Bel-Air.)
Mr. Pratt has also criticized the city’s response to homelessness and drug addiction as wholly inadequate, vowing to crack down on encampments and open-air drug use. But even some fans question whether the political novice has the policy chops to lead America’s second-largest city through a term that will include the Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.
“Campaigning and governing are two different things,” says Mr. Klink, adding that Mr. Pratt is a “classic disrupter.”
On the campaign trail, Ms. Bass has emphasized the steps she’s taken on some of the city’s most intractable problems. “Street homelessness and crime are down. Affordable housing is up,” says one Bass social media post. “We’re turning the page and making real progress after decades of inaction.”
But it hasn’t been an easy sell: Polls show a majority of voters view her unfavorably.
“We have a lot of people who are big fans of hers,” says Mr. Wolman, who works as communications director for the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, though he says he’s speaking as a constituent and not on behalf of the club, which has stayed neutral in the race. “But the fire was such a disaster on such an epic scale that people are upset.”
“Even if she couldn’t have prevented it, there’s always a feeling that more could have been done,” he says.
At the same time, Ms. Bass’ long record in public office might give some voters confidence. As a former state legislator and member of Congress, she is well connected across the state – and knows how to navigate political and policy circles.
Steve Cron was one in a group of Angelenos who lost homes in the Palisades Fire who went to lobby state legislators some months back on everything from recovery red tape to mortgage insurance. Ms. Bass, he says, helped lead the effort.
“[The access] was all because she was behind it and wanted us to have that opportunity,” says Mr. Cron, president of the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club. Like Mr. Wolman, Mr. Cron says he’s speaking for himself, not the club.
Mr. Cron says the city and agencies absolutely made mistakes before and during the fire. To a degree, he says, he can understand. “Some amount of mistakes were within the realm of what can happen in a chaotic situation where nobody was quite prepared,” he says.
In the end, he says, it won’t affect his vote.
“I’m still supporting Mayor Bass,” says Mr. Cron, who bought his home 18 years ago and was underinsured. After the fires, rebuilding was so costly that the members of his homeowners association agreed to sell to a developer, rather than rebuild.
“Although I think she made some mistakes, I think she is the most qualified.”