Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt is attempting to win in a liberal city run by a Democratic Party establishment. The town last elected a GOP candidate to its top job nearly three decades ago.
For this reason, Pratt, a registered Republican, has sought to cast himself as a nonpartisan figure. “All my supporters in Los Angeles are Democrats,” he told CBS. Everyone I know, my family, are all Democrats.” To NBC he explained, “When you vote for Spencer Pratt on your ballot today or tonight, it’ll say Spencer Pratt, community advocate because that’s how I identify.” He added, “I do not represent a party. I don’t have a campaign manager. I don’t have campaign consultants. There’s no political party backing me.”
Still, behind the scenes, Republicans are steering his campaign. Its headquarters, according to city disclosure filings, is a boutique tax service agency run by the wife of former GOP congressman Brian Bilbray in Imperial Beach, a small town in San Diego County just north of the U.S. border. Their daughter, a former Republican Party delegate, is Pratt’s treasurer, with a listed email identifying an entity called “BB Campaigns” which has no discernible public footprint.
Since leaving office in 2001, Bilbray has been paid millions of dollars over the years by Los Angeles County to lobby the federal government, per OpenSecrets. It’s common for a large Democratic government entity to work with former elected Republicans to leverage their relationships with party members — especially committee chairs, money appropriators and agency officials — to advocate for everything from infrastructure funding and transportation grants to disaster relief and regulatory carve-outs.
Pratt’s campaign fundraising events, including intimate April get-togethers held in Beverly Hills and Mandeville Canyon, have been organized in part by Pluvious Group. It’s a L.A.-based political consulting firm which, according to public records, has worked on behalf of a slew of right-wing figures, from President Donald Trump and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton to U.S. Rep Mike Garcia, whose district is just north of Los Angeles.
Pluvious also helped elect Nathan Hochman as Los Angeles D.A. in 2024. Hochman, who won as an independent in that race, had previously lost as a Republican two years earlier in the race to be California Attorney General.
George Gascon, a progressive who Hochman beat to become D.A., denounced Pluvious when he was first running for that office in 2019. He noted the firm’s work on behalf of Trump as well as its place at “the center of a money laundering scheme” during one state-level race which, the Sacramento Bee explained in 2016, “allowed the original donors to conceal their identities in filings and avoid exceeding campaign contribution limits.” (California’s Fair Political Practices Commission found that the firm set up the illegal donations and was aware of the plot.)
Incumbent mayor Karen Bass currently holds the lead in polls for the June 2 election. Pratt and progressive L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman are vying for the second slot to make the Nov. 3 runoff. She has called him a “MAGA Republican.” He has referred to her as a “Ramanchurian Candidate,” in reference to the 1962 political thriller The Manchurian Candidate about a political puppet.
Little is known about Pratt’s campaign organization. His spokesperson — who has worked for him and his wife Heidi Montag long before he announced his candidacy in January — didn’t respond to THR’s inquiry about the identities of its key staffers and consultants.
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