Days after the polls closed in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, mail-in ballots continued to arrive and, almost without exception, they appeared to break in favor of Democratic Socialist City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, pushing fire victim Spencer Pratt a registered Republican who ran as an independent in the officially non-partisan contest into third place and out of contention for the November general election, where Raman will now face off against another hard-left figure, incumbent and widely criticized Mayor Karen Bass.
The spectacle has become familiar in California politics, where late-arriving ballots somehow tend to benefit the progressive establishment. According to RedState, Pratt has refused to retreat from public life or go home and hide under the sheets after his narrow defeat, choosing instead to continue pressing for reform in a city and state he insists he still loves, despite their mounting dysfunction.
As RedStates Ben Smith noted, Pratt has already launched a new vehicle for that fight. Pratt announced Tuesday that he is launching The WAR Foundation, a new effort aimed at exposing corruption, failed leadership, and the network of politicians and nonprofit operators he says are profiting while California cities fall apart.
That announcement was followed by another twist late Tuesday that raised more questions than answers. What does it mean, what was discussed, and why is Pratt choosing to reveal it now?
Pratt posted a photograph showing himself and a young boy who appears to be his son seated in the Oval Office as guests of President Donald Trump. With Trump currently in Turkey for the NATO summit, the timing of the photo is uncertain, but the image itself is unmistakable.
The snapshot, which Pratt shared with the caption, I will never stop fighting for my community, quickly ricocheted across social media. For a candidate who ran as an outsider against the entrenched Democratic machine in Los Angeles, a meeting in the Oval Office with the 45th president is no small signal.
The picture shows two unidentified men with their backs to the camera, while the woman on the left strongly resembles White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. If the boy on the right is indeed Pratts son, he has been handed a moment that will likely stay with him for the rest of his life.
One prominent online reaction captured the sense that something larger may be unfolding. ?? WHOA! @spencerpratt just posted a photo of himself and his son sitting in the Oval Office meeting with President Trump and apparently @SusieWiles47 Somethings brewing! With the LA mayoral race, God may have closed a small window and opened a much bigger door.
For now, Pratt is keeping his cards close to the vest. The former reality star has not released further details about the meeting, RedState reported, leaving observers to speculate whether this was a courtesy visit, a strategic conversation about California politics, or the opening move in a broader national role.
What is clear is that Pratts campaign struck a nerve in Los Angeles, a city many residents feel has been deliberately driven into decline by progressive leadership. As RedState has documented, he resonated with voters across demographic and partisan lines who are exhausted by rising crime, rampant homelessness, and a political class that seems more interested in virtue signaling than governance.
The former The Hills star ran an anti-establishment campaign that relied heavily on social media, viral videos and criticism of city leaders over issues including homelessness, public safety and the response to the devastating Palisades fire. That message, grounded in frustration with failed liberal policies, helped him build a grassroots movement despite his lack of prior political experience.
Pratts team and his supporters leaned into his outsider persona with a barrage of creative content. He released a series of viral videos portraying him as a political outsider fighting to save Los Angeles, while AI-generated clips created by Pratts supporters depicted him as a superhero-like figure battling incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Some of the more imaginative videos came directly from the campaign, while many others were produced independently by content creators energized by his message. The result was a level of organic buzz around a local race that Los Angeles has not seen in decades, encapsulated in the rallying cry: LA is worth saving. Vote Spencer Pratt.
That energy did not stop at the California state line, and it appears to have caught the attention of Trump and his inner circle. For conservatives who have watched California become a cautionary tale of progressive governance, the idea of a populist, anti-establishment figure from Hollywoods backyard sitting down with a president suggests that the fight for the state is far from over.
Whether the Oval Office meeting leads to a formal role for Pratt in national politics, a renewed bid for office, or a broader effort through The WAR Foundation to expose corruption and failed leadership, his trajectory underscores a growing appetite for alternatives to one-party rule on the West Coast. As one conservative commentator put it, Keep fighting, Spencer you may have lost the primary, but youre still winning.
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