Trading on Dark Horse Candidate Spencer Pratt is Dominating L.A.’s Mayoral Race on Kalshi
Spencer Pratt and wife Heidi Montag (during Big Brother Winter 2013)
Trading on the Los Angeles mayoral race is heating up at Kalshi in advance of the June 2 election. And almost all of it is on dark-horse, anti-establishment candidate Spencer Pratt.
Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass is a fairly strong favorite on the popular prediction market, with nearly a 60% implied chance of winning as of May 15. However, unrest in the area has opened up the possibility that a candidate like Pratt can make some waves.
Few would have imagined Pratt as a serious candidate when the calendar turned to 2026. A former reality TV star on The Hills (a spinoff from the ultra-popular Laguna Beach in the early 2000s), Pratt has no history in politics.
He’s also a registered Republican in a state where Democrats dominate. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans almost 2-1.
Despite all of that, his odds have ticked up to the point where he’s the second favorite. California uses non-partisan primaries. The top two vote-getters on June 2 will advance to a runoff election in November, unless someone gets more than 50% in the primary. That would end the race immediately.
Spencer Pratt Gets 79% of the Kalshi Betting Action
The Kalshi market speculating on the L.A. mayoral election winner has generated about $9.8 million in total volume. About $9.1 million of that has happened since March 1. Of that $9.1 million, according to Gaming America’s data, almost $7.2 million has been on Pratt.
In other words, Pratt accounts for 79% of recent trading on the mayoral race.
You wouldn’t guess that looking at the market’s price chart, as Pratt is a distant second in the race, and his odds have held fairly steady compared to the other top candidates. City Councilmember Nithya Raman is now in third behind Pratt, after having held the lead for a few weeks in late April. Yet, despite that volatility, she accounts for less than $1 million in trades.
The following graph shows the extent to which Kalshi users’ interest has been with Pratt’s run specifically. Since early April, his shares have accounted for the bulk of the total daily trades.
Pratt Brings Trump-Like Outsider Quality to L.A. Politics
Pratt brings several Donald Trump-like qualities to the L.A. mayoral race. However, he’s also been careful to distance himself from Trump. In a sense, he’s trying to leverage the advantages of being a political outsider while balancing that with avoiding being labeled as a MAGA candidate in one of the most anti-Trump states.
The parallels between Pratt and Trump are obvious. Both are reality TV celebrities with no previous history of campaigning, and both are white men running on anti-establishment platforms while playing on the public’s fears and frustrations.
The main planks in Pratt’s platform relate to drug addiction and wildfires. He says he became interested in politics after both he and his parents lost their homes in the Pacific Palisades fires of 2025.
“I was a naive, tax-paying citizen,” he said at a local debate in May. “I always believed that you pay your taxes, the firefighters will show up, LAPD will show up, your water comes out of the sink.”
“After you lose everything because of the failures at city leadership, you realize how important local government is.”
Pratt has also accused local governments of negligence when it comes to homelessness and related issues. According to The Atlantic, around 75,000 homeless individuals reside in the county, with about 45,000 of them in L.A. city limits. Pratt says he wants to clean up the streets of homeless drug addicts, and has put unusual focus on their alleged breeding and abuse of dogs.
When Raman labeled him a MAGA candidate, Pratt pushed back, saying he isn’t backed by a political party and only wishes to fix issues in his home city. He framed himself as a candidate more akin to Barack Obama, a community advocate taking up politics to make a difference.
Do Kalshi Demographics Overrate Candidates Like Pratt?
Is Pratt gaining steam because he’s building a legitimate case as the future mayor of L.A.? Or does a platform like Kalshi overstate his case because his anti-establishment politics overlap so heavily with prediction markets’ libertarian-leaning userbase?
Prediction markets were famously more bullish on Trump’s 2024 run than election polls. Prediction market bulls like to use that as a case in point that prediction markets serve as important societal sources of truth. Even the polls show Pratt’s support having doubled since March, but at 22% support to Bass’s 30%, he’d still be a heavy underdog in a runoff at this point, if he makes it that far.
The fact that prediction markets tend to give such a better chance than the polls may be why the Trump family loves them so much. Kalshi users betting on Pratt doesn’t necessarily imply they support him, but it does suggest that they’re looking for another windfall like they got betting on Trump in 2024.
Yet another parallel to Trump is that Pratt’s framing of himself as a plucky underdog outsider isn’t entirely grounded in reality. People reported in late April that he had actually raised more money than incumbent Bass. So, there’s real momentum and resources behind Pratt’s campaign.
Kalshi betting says Pratt is more than a washed-up reality TV star looking for viral headlines. In a few weeks, the public will find out whether these speculators are correct.
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