A Dogfight Over Animal Voters

LOS ANGELES HAS LONG HAD its share of single-issue voters: There are preservationist-minded NIMBYs, who live and breathe slow growth; and voters on both sides of the policing divide, who are uniquely concerned with whether the city is spending enough — or too much— on its police force.

But amid the ongoing travails of the city’s beleaguered animal services department, another class of single-issue voter has become increasingly vocal this election cycle. Meet the animal welfare voters: people for whom the suffering of animals trump concerns about crime, housing, or traffic.

They may only account for a smidgen of the electorate, but they’ve found their way into the algorithm. In recent weeks, almost all the mayoral candidates have featured dogs on their campaign pages—although no one has embraced the animal vote more than Spencer Pratt. The former reality TV star, whose home burned during the Palisades fire, launched his campaign in a fury over the city’s fire response, but has lately become a cause célèbre among animal-focused voters. 

Take Tricia Carvajal, who lives in Venice and works for an animal rescue nonprofit in addition to volunteering with the city’s shelters. A self-proclaimed registered Democrat, Carvajal said she is shocked to find herself supporting a Republican reality star for mayor, but has done so in large part because Pratt is “the only one who has taken the time to speak with so many people in animal welfare and speak about the atrocities that are going on in our city.” 

This matters because in a close race, a small group of passionate voters can be “a difference maker,” said veteran political strategist John Shallman

“Animals hit a very visceral place for people,” he said, adding that animal welfare voters “may not be the biggest bloc in the community, but they can be one of the most activated. And in local elections, activated beats passive all the time.”

Conditions in the city’s six animal shelters have been a growing concern among animal-focused voters for years.  

When Mayor Karen Bass took office in 2022, she promised to make  L.A. “a national model for animal welfare.” Her big move was to hire a new general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services in June 2023 to oversee the shelters, but a few months later, it came to light that the rate of euthanasia had skyrocketed in the city’s shelters. Only a year later, the general manager resigned, saying she felt powerless to solve the entrenched problems in the shelters. 

That ongoing troubles have left many voters who care about animal issues furious – and searching for a candidate who they feel shares their urgency about the issue. 

The Bass campaign has made outreach to those voters. Last month, her office hired a new general manager for its troubled animal services department. Her office also secured a $14 million grant in partnership with the ASPCA and Best Friends Animal Society aimed at improving shelters, including providing funds to hire an additional two dozen positions for animal services. In addition, her office launched a new veterinary clinic pop-up on Skid Row. The first event resulted in dozens of animals getting spayed or neutered and getting vaccines. 

Councilmember Nithya Raman released an animal-focused video on her campaign Instagram last month, calling animal welfare “an issue that matters to a lot of people.” Over shots of dogs in cages in a city shelter, she called for a more robust spay and neuter program and for better leadership and more funding for animal welfare.

Candidates Adam Miller and Rae Huang have also jumped onto the dog pile. Both showed up at a “Stand Up for Pits” Foundation town hall held by the executive director of the foundation and comedian Rebecca Corry. Corry, who has hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, made headlines when she sued the city of L.A., the mayor and the LAPD at the end of last year over the mistreatment of dogs.  

Miller posted an old photo of himself to Instagram with a very-out-of-style hairdo and a Labrador retriever, writing: “I’ve been an animal lover since mullets and VHS.” He added that the “crisis facing LA’s animal services is heartbreaking” and called for a host of changes to the city’s shelter system, including true “no-kill” shelters, a fully funded spay-and-neuter program and a better foster program. 

Huang visited The UnderDog Community Project — an organization that provides support to the pets of homeless Angelenos – at one of their monthly pet vaccine clinics and posted about it on her Instagram this week. 

But none of the other candidates have anywhere near as much dog-outreach as Pratt. 

His Instagram endlessly reposts images of dogs with their tongues hanging out next to Pratt yard signs and dogs wearing “Paws for Pratt” and “Puppies for Pratt”  T-shirts. A billboard for Pratt shows him surrounded by dozens of dogs with the phrase: “If dogs could vote they’d vote Spencer Pratt for LA Mayor.” 

It’s a strategy that could be particularly effective for a Republican candidate running in deep-blue Los Angeles, said Shallman. “It's a way to connect to people who you might not otherwise agree with,” he said. “People who rescue animals or who advocate for animal welfare often don't see themselves reflected in politics, right? If they suddenly feel seen and heard, they can become unusually energized.” 

Indeed, Pratt told opinion writer Meghan Daum, writing in The Atlantic that he “believes he can win on dog lovers and safety concerned moms alone.” (Daum, a dog lover, recently announced that she is backing Pratt.)

Pratt has also used the plight of animals to strike another hot-button issue: homelessness. His campaign has managed to turn the condition of street dogs on Skid Row into a potent symbol of many of the ills that ail the city.  Pratt has claimed that homeless people on Skid Row are abusing dogs. 

In a video posted to his Instagram on April 24, Pratt tried to rally people in Encino to join his campaign, saying:  “We have dogs to save in downtown LA… Let's rally to save our pets from the zombies.” (Pratt has referred to homeless people as zombies.)

One of Pratt’s most vocal surrogates among dog voters is Joey Tuccio, a screenwriting coach who has amassed more than 40,000 Instagram followers by filming himself going to Skid Row to hand out dog food and call attention to what he claims are examples of homeless people abusing dogs.

On a recent Sunday, Tuccio walked through Skid Row with an L.A. Material reporter and several volunteers. The group came across a large white shaggy dog that they judged to be overheated and covered in fleas. 

One of the volunteers took hold of the dog’s leash and walked briskly away with it while another volunteer plied the dog with treats. The dog’s owner, a man in a wheelchair, was slumped over and it wasn’t clear whether he was conscious. The man appeared not to notice the loss of his dog.  

Even as Pratt surges among some animal-focused voters, others said they were concerned that his campaign was pitting animal welfare against the rights of homeless people.

Rebecca Cox, an interior designer in Venice who has been volunteering with animal rescues since 2008 and has supported Huang in online posts, said that in the past at animal welfare events like adoptions, people would put their politics aside. “You never brought it up,” she said. 

But this election season, she said, it’s been impossible to avoid politics. She said the election discourse has been “divisive in a really intense way.”