I received my June 2 primary ballot in the mail last week and, as always, felt a tinge of disappointment that, although I live in Los Angeles County, I’m outside the city limits of L.A. and can’t vote for mayor. Voting in the race that features the worst mayor in the country, Karen Bass, feels like my birthright. I grew up in the city; my childhood home, like the home of rapidly rising mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, burned down in the 2025 fires. I still drive into L.A. several times a year to see family or for doctor’s appointments, and, as I recently wrote, the deterioration of the city is more evident each time I go.
The question is not whether those who can vote in the mayoral race have seen the deterioration (it’s undeniable), but whether they will finally hold leftist leadership responsible. Or, as The Free Press asks in a video, “Have L.A. Voters Finally Had Enough?”
In the video, Peter Savodnik asked voters across the city what the most important thing the mayor has to do is. He expected voters in working-class areas to care about concrete issues that affect their daily lives, and wealthier voters to care more about luxury beliefs that signal their progressive credentials. As he admitted, he was “dead wrong.”
In Boyle Heights, where the average household income is under $60,000, people were primarily concerned about city cleanliness, public safety, and homelessness. One woman shared that, due to the theft of copper wires, many people are being assaulted on unlit streets at night. Pratt, in a very effective ad that’s becoming a hallmark of his campaign, highlighted Bass’s failure, as well as the failure of far-left progressive candidate Nithya Raman — who some are saying could become L.A.’s Mamdani — on the issue, while standing in front of the 6th Street Bridge in downtown Los Angeles, which you can’t see because of the darkness:
It is beautiful if only you could see it. But all the lights have been allowed to be stolen from our taxpayer money because Mayor Basura and Nithya Raman and her DSA city council let criminals run the streets. But don’t worry: Mayor Basura is planning to take $200 million more of our tax money to get solar-powered lights — oh, because the criminals won’t steal those! But don’t worry, Nithya Raman has suggested putting cages around the lights. That’s right — cages. That’ll stop them!
In Brentwood, where the average household income is around $190,000, voters voiced the same concerns, saying they want clean streets, less graffiti and homeless, and more cops. Savodnik heard no mention of boutique issues like gender fluidity and “defund the police.”
Related: Dems Flunk Homelessness Test in California Gubernatorial Debate
One woman who voted for Bass last election and who said all you have to do is walk the streets to see that things are worse than they were 20 years ago, admitted that “the city has not got the right polices. They’re not working.” That’s the good news: she seems like someone who will no longer believe Bass when she tells voters not to believe they’re lying eyes. The bad news? She couldn’t tell Savodnik that she definitely won’t vote for Bass again this year.
She’s one of the 40% of voters who, according to a new poll from UCLA, are still undecided about this race. Carl Cannon of RealClearPolitics explains that while Pratt, who is at 11% in the poll, is hoping that Raman and Bass will split the progressive vote, “they could still split and maybe beat him because there are so many liberals in Los Angeles.”
Richard Porter, who joined Cannon on the latest RealClearPolitics podcast to discuss Pratt’s chances, said “the question is when will people notice that the folks who are governing them are mediocre and implementing stupid ideas.” Then, in a message that voters who are still considering voting for Bass should heed, he brought up Hans Christian Andersen’s parable about the emperor’s new clothes: “It’s a child who points out that the emperor has no clothes. All the adults are sitting there complimenting them and, you know, going along — afraid to raise their hand, afraid to stand out. And a reality star — one thing they aren’t is afraid to stand out.”
The reality star in this race, Pratt, says he is running to create a safer Los Angeles for his two sons, Gunner and Ryker. In the Free Press video, one mother expresses the same concern: “I have young kids. We really like to explore this city, so I want to show my kids the city that I grew up in, that I love and adore. I want the next mayor to be able to make sure all of the museums and the parks are places where every family can go to without feeling nervous.”
To understand that parental fear, click here to see a photo that a pregnant mother shared on social media. She’s walking with her two-year-old daughter in Hollywood on Sunday when two homeless drug addicts block the sidewalk. “10 months pregnant in LA, out for a ‘relaxing’ walk with my 2-year-old… and we get trapped by two Zombies,” the mother wrote on X.
Bass, who says Pratt is exploiting the grief of Palisades Fire victims in his campaign, would surely dismiss parents like this as well, suggesting they are exaggerating their fear rather than describing a nightmare they feel every day. We will have to wait and see whether enough of them decide to vote for Bass’s “worst nightmare,” Spencer Pratt.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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