In a video generated using artificial intelligence (AI), flames lick the Los Angeles night sky as the famous Hollywood sign burns brightly. The scene shifts to a Gotham-inspired building where Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, cast as the Joker, sits atop a throne, clutching a gavel and wearing a smeared red smile.
A mother on her hands and knees begs Bass to remove homeless drug addicts who make the streets unsafe for her children. A man whose home burned down in a wildfire is dragged before her, where he pleads to rebuild.
Enter Spencer Pratt as Batman-styled superhero, ready to change the status quo and clean up the city.
No one believed that Pratt, a former television reality star, had a chance to become Los Angeles’s next mayor. In 2007, on MTV’s “The Hills,” he was the troublemaking boyfriend—and later husband—of Heidi Montag.
As a registered Republican running as an independent, his odds of pulling out a win in deep-blue Los Angeles seemed a pipe dream.
His chances got better when the AI videos began going viral.
Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire and now parks an RV on his burned-out lot, has said he wants to fix the city’s disaster response. He’s also campaigning to remove homeless encampments and enforce laws against public drug use.
The Joker video received millions of views on social media. It was produced by AI creator Charles Curran, a Pratt supporter.
Destruction caused by the Palisades fires lines neighborhoods near Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 2024. Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, has made the city's disaster response a centerpiece of his campaign. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
Curran followed up with two more AI videos, again casting Pratt as the hero and Bass as the villain. One shows her as Star Wars’ Darth Vader, and in the latest, she’s portrayed as Marvel’s Thanos.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a 2016 presidential contender, said in a May 5 post on X that the Joker video was “maybe the best political ad of the year.”
Other AI creators have joined in, including AI video producer TBC, which shared a video on X depicting Bass in a stark map room, illuminated by bare light bulbs, and her staff dressed in gray uniforms reminiscent of communist regimes.
In the TBC production, Bass laments the effect that Pratt’s AI videos have had on her campaign.
The video ends with her saying, “The race might be lost, but if you think I am giving up this office, you are sorely mistaken.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks at an event promoting President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program, in Culver City, Calif., on Feb. 21, 2024. Bass is runnning for a second term as mayor of the nation's second-largest city, with independent candidate Spencer Pratt and Democrat Nithya Raman also on the ballot. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
‘Dangerous Trend’
In real life, Bass has condemned the fictitious videos.
“Actually, I think it’s a very dangerous trend,” she said during a May 13 CNN interview.
“His social media is now taking on a violent turn,” she said, stating that the tomatoes being thrown at her in the Joker video looked like blood.
Bass said demonizing people in these videos could “provoke people who are unstable.“
She said that voters in her city are upset and acknowledged that Pratt is capitalizing on that by painting himself as a savior.
“I think that plays into people’s desperation, and I think oftentimes we look for someone superhuman to save us,” she said. “The reality is it never happens. Those are fictional characters.”
(L–R) Spencer, Gunner, Heidi, and Ryker Pratt attend Monster Jam at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., on April 11, 2026. Pratt, a former reality show star, has shaken up the race with his AI-generated campaign ads. (Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Feld Entertainment, Inc.)
Future Is Now
Recent AI-produced fictional campaign videos could signal the future, but some say that the future has already arrived.
“I don’t think it’s just the future of campaigning. I think it’s the present as well,” Jeff Burton, a California-based GOP strategist and founding partner of Maven Advocacy Partners, told The Epoch Times.
In Los Angeles, Neama Rahmani, a legal analyst who also sits on the University of California–Los Angeles board of political science, said he thinks campaigns will gravitate to AI ads given Pratt’s success.
Rahmani told The Epoch Times that AI offers a cost-effective alternative to the high cost of producing a television campaign ad.
The use of AI in politics hasn’t been without controversy; some have condemned it as misleading.
The debate over AI in politics intensified in April 2023, when the Republican National Committee released an attack ad aimed at President Joe Biden, who was seeking a second term. The ad was made entirely with AI-generated images depicting an apocalyptic future should he win.
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has also used AI tools.
Journalists watch as an AI-generated fake video posted on President Donald Trump's Truth Social account plays in the Briefing Room at the White House on Oct. 1, 2025. Building on Trump's approach, other politicians have also adopted AI-generated content. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)
One notable example of this shift is an AI video that the president posted on his Truth Social account, in which he and Elon Musk appear in “Trump Gaza.” The video showed Gaza transformed from a war zone into a prosperous, beautiful area featuring a giant golden statue of Trump.
Other politicians have also adopted AI-generated content.
In Texas, Republican Senate primary candidates Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn have used AI ads against each other. Paxton’s camp ran one in January, featuring a fake dance scene with Cornyn and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who lost her bid in the Democratic Senate primary.
In May, Cornyn retaliated with his own AI video of Paxton in a fictitious “Love Shack” parody with mistresses. The video capitalized on an alleged affair that became part of Paxton’s 2023 impeachment trial.
Also in May, Oklahoma Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei cried foul when an AI political attack ad depicted him in a fictitious scene cozying up to Democrat and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran for president in 2016.
(Left) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in Washington on May 20, 2019. (Right) Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) at the newly renamed Javier Vega Jr. Border Patrol Checkpoint in Sarita, Texas, on March 20, 2019. (Samira Bouaou, Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times)
Remarkable Underdog
Aside from Pratt, the other candidate with a shot is Nithya Raman, a Los Angeles city councilmember and Democrat who’s generally considered further left than Bass.
A recent Emerson poll shows Bass leading, with Pratt in second place and Raman in third.
“There is an age divide in the mayoral primary: 47 percent of voters over 60 break for Bass, while 25 percent support Pratt and 6 percent Raman,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
“Voters under 40 break for Raman at 31 percent, followed by Bass at 20 percent, and Pratt at 13 percent.”
A Cygnal poll conducted May 15–May 18 of 500 likely nonpartisan primary voters showed that Pratt was gaining ground.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman speaks in Los Angeles on Aug. 7, 2024. Raman, a Democrat, is campaigning against incumbent Karen Bass and independent Spencer Pratt in the city's mayoral race. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
In polling, an initial ballot asks voters who they will vote for, with little to no information provided. In an informed ballot, respondents are asked again and given additional information, such as the candidate’s policy positions.
Pratt moved from 22 percent to 25 percent on the informed ballot, pulling even with Bass at 25 percent.
“Bass is flat, capped out, and carrying the weight of a city voters believe is headed in the wrong direction,” Cygnal CEO Brent Buchanan said in a statement.
It has been 25 years since a Republican served as mayor in Los Angeles. The last one was Dick Riordan. He was a two-term mayor elected in 1993 who left office in 2001.
Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan with President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 1993, in this file photo. Riordan, the last Republican mayor of Los Angeles, served from 1993 to 2001. (Robert McNeely/Public Domain)
Cashing In
In Los Angeles, if a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan June 2 primary, he or she wins the election outright. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election in the nonpartisan race.
Rahmani said Pratt’s social media campaign has helped him level the playing field to a degree in a city dominated by Democrats.
The latest campaign finance records show that Pratt’s war chest exploded during the last reporting period, raising $2.72 million from mid-April to mid-May. That’s nearly 10 times more than Bass’s $283,000 during the same period.
Pratt reported a total of $3.26 million in contributions, putting him ahead of Bass, who has $3.13 million.
People count California recall ballot votes at a Los Angeles Registrar site at the Los Angeles Fair Grounds in Pomona, Calif., on Aug. 31, 2021. The effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, was rejected by the state's voters. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
‘Math Problem’
Pratt lacks the institutional and political muscle that California Democrats command.
Cristina Antelo, principal at Ferox Strategies in Washington, told The Epoch Times via email that Pratt is “going to run into a math problem.”
“LA is a city where Trump only ever got a quarter of the city’s vote,” Antelo said. “So Pratt would have to double Trump’s vote and nearly get 43 percent of the Democrats’ vote.”
Although a Pratt win is possible, it’s not probable, Burton said. Pratt’s ground game to get out the vote remains a critical part of a successful campaign, he said.
Spencer Pratt visits “Fox & Friends” at Fox News Channel Studios in New York City on May 28, 2026. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
“It’s hard to go up against the Democratic machine in LA, or any of California,” Burton said.
Burton said Pratt’s performance during the May 6 mayoral debate caught people’s attention. Pratt had a decent audience before the debate, but things really took off afterward, he said.
“The real impact was his debate performance a few weeks ago, where it showed that he was real,” Burton said. “AI videos on their own aren’t going to do much for a campaign.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Rep. Jasmine Crockett. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
