Maybe Spencer Pratt never had much of a shot to win. Did you ever think of that, Mr. National Political Opiner?
There’s been outrage, OUTRAGE, over the fact that Los Angeles Republican mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt appears headed to the dustbin of history.
On election night, Pratt, a former reality TV villain, was in second place, but that lead over democratic socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman eroded over time. Now he’s stuck in third and only the top two advance.
Pratt earned lots of attention throughout the country by tapping into real dissatisfaction with the incumbent, Democrat Karen Bass, and highlighted her many issues, including her abysmal response to the deadly and devastating wildfires that tore through places like the Pacific Palisades over a year ago.
Going viral online is great for raising money, which is why approximately 80% of the $3.75 million in his campaign coffers was from outside of Los Angeles city limits. But firing up people tweeting and writing checks in places like Texas or Santa Monica isn’t going to increase your vote total within the city.
And some people just can’t wrap their heads around that.
“They want you to believe this happened in the LA Mayors race… 3rd place jumps to 1st in *every* ballot drop *after* Election Day. Defies all mathematical probability, the law of averages and has never happened in US election history,” tweeted right-wing personality and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson. “No one with a functional brain believes this.’
This actually happens all the time in California, Benny. I’m surprised you couldn’t put your big, “functional brain” to work finding other examples, of which there are plenty.
It doesn’t take a political science doctorate to understand that the numbers reported on Election Night are not the final numbers; as such, the final numbers, including who’s up and who’s down, can change.
“Come on. Did you really think they would let Spencer Pratt even come close?” asked Tim Burchett, a Republican Congressman from Tennessee.
Who are “they,” exactly? Voters? No, I did not think they would let Pratt get close. But, of course, in a mostly three-way race he was close.
Republicans are around 15% of voters in the city of Los Angeles. That’s not enough to win an election, guys. Many have claimed, after the fact, that they never actually thought Pratt would become mayor, just that he would make the top two. Ah, I love a good rewrite of history.
In order to win, Republicans would need a lot of help from Democrats and independents, which would be hard when Democratic candidates just need to say “Trump.”
Tying every competitive California Republican candidate to President Donald Trump is a corny strategy, but it works (it’s also why you don’t see much improvement on most issues in the state over the past decade or so). The Republican would either have to embrace Trump, which would destroy them with Democratic voters and many independents, or deny Trump and lose Republicans.
The best thing to do if you want to win an election in blue parts of California is to be a Democrat, which is what billionaire developer Rick Caruso tried in 2022 and it almost worked. In fact, it’s hard not to wonder “what if” he had decided to challenge Bass again.
Anyone can look at how Republicans have fared in citywide elections and see that they’re destined for somewhere around 30%, unless something crazy happens. And no, apparently Bass being an awful mayor is not crazy enough for voters to consider a Republican. But they might elect a democratic socialist in Raman (good luck with that!).
Many are alleging fraud, though no one can say exactly how or why. There’s just lots of talk about “them” doing nefarious things and lots of people “just asking questions.”
The biggest flaw with the fraud narrative, besides the lack of evidence and utter predictability of the outcome, is that it’s never quite clear who is committing the fraud and why, since both women would have rather faced Pratt than each other.
Of course, it’s still always possible that there was fraudulent activity (because it’s always possible), and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has already said his office is looking into it. Essayli is very smart and good at his job and is likely to find anything there is to find.
But it’s still unlikely there was enough fraud to change the outcome of this election, which brings us to the point of this whole story.
The way California conducts its elections is absurd in many ways. It takes way too long to count votes, and it is silly that ballots are accepted up to seven days after the election under certain conditions. Both of these things, and others, lead to unnecessary aggravation and cynicism with many voters.
But also, whining about elections is not going to help Republicans win more in California. A much better use of time would be to do the hard work of building winning coalitions and turnout operations.
Republicans will only become competitive again in California on the whole when they restore credibility with voters. That won’t happen while leading voices can’t understand basic math.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group