Silicon Valley Backs Spencer Pratt as L.A. Mayor’s Race Tightens in Final Hours

The reality television star running for Los Angeles mayor, Spencer Pratt, is drawing campaign donations from influential technology titans — most recently Google co-founder Sergey Brin — as polls place him within striking distance of the front-runners ahead of Tuesday’s primary.Mr. Brin gave Mr. Pratt the maximum donation of $1,800 on May 27, according to campaign finance records. Mr. Pratt, in a post on X, responded to the news with his oft-used tagline, “it’s called common sense.” Mr. Brin spent decades backing liberal causes and Democratic candidates before shifting rightward in recent years. He has been a vocal opponent of California’s proposed billionaire wealth tax, comparing the state’s progressive policies to those of the Soviet regime.“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union,” Mr. Brin said in April. “I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”Mr. Brin is only the latest influential Silicon Valley figure to back Mr. Pratt’s mayoral bid. The former “The Hills” star has attracted contributions from Palantir’s chief technology officer, Shyam Sankar; SpaceX’s director of solar production, Noah Cowles; and a communications executive at TikTok, among others, according to Fox News.On Monday afternoon, Sequoia Capital partner and political commentator Shaun Maguire offered Mr. Pratt a full-throated endorsement on X, declaring: “Vote for Spencer Pratt, Save America.”The tech world’s show of support comes as Mr. Pratt makes his final push ahead of Tuesday’s primary. He has in recent weeks closed much of the gap between himself and his rivals, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat and former House representative, and Assemblywoman Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.A poll released Thursday from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found Ms. Bass with 26 percent support among likely voters, while Ms. Raman and Mr. Pratt recorded 25 percent and 22 percent, respectively. The poll’s director told the Los Angeles Times that the results place the three candidates “within the margin of error” and predicted that the outcome “is going to boil down to turnout.”The results mark a significant shift from earlier polls, which placed Ms. Bass with a commanding lead. Since the last IGS poll in March, her support has remained largely flat while Mr. Pratt and Ms. Raman have both made substantial gains.Mr. Pratt announced his mayoral bid in January, on the one-year anniversary of the Pacific Palisades wildfires, which killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes, including his own. He has since gained traction through relentless criticism of Ms. Bass’s wildfire response and a series of viral campaign videos that leveraged his camera savvy to take aim at California’s political establishment.Mr. Pratt has positioned himself as an opponent of the status quo, anchoring his campaign in the argument that California’s political system is broken and that Los Angeles needs not “more government programs” but “common sense” and “accountability.” He has cast himself as the antithesis of the political establishment, telling voters he is “not a politician” but “a husband and a father who watched my home burn because the system failed us.”Though a registered Republican, Mr. Pratt has sought to distance himself from political labels, calling the race “non-partisan” and declining to identify as “MAGA.”In addition to tech titans, Mr. Pratt has drawn support from high-profile celebrities and political figures, including actor Dennis Quaid, podcaster Joe Rogan, former acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, and President Trump, who said last month that he would “like to see” Mr. Pratt “do well.”

Silicon Valley Backs Spencer Pratt as L.A. Mayor’s Race Tightens in Final Hours

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