Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt at a campaign block party on Wednesday. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
DAVID K. ISRAEL WOULD SEEM to have little in common with Spencer Pratt, the brash reality TV star turned mayoral candidate.
Israel, 58, is a novelist and composer whose music has sent dancers leaping across stages around the world. He’s worked with Leonard Bernstein and Twyla Tharp. He often hosts Sunday salons for those in the arts. He’s a registered Democrat. He said he cannot stand Donald Trump.
But both he and Pratt lost their homes (and everything inside them) in the Palisades fire, a catastrophe that forged a bond. It also catapulted Pratt—previously best known for playing the villain on “The Hills” for five seasons—into politics. On the fire’s one-year anniversary, he launched his mayoral campaign, vowing to “expose the system.” Israel, a self-described “fanboy,” said he is “100% behind him,” given the choices on offer.
“Yes, he has no experience in government — to me, that’s great. That’s what we need,” said the composer, adding that he could write a book filled with his grievances about Mayor Karen Bass. “If we’re all wrong, and he wins, it can’t be worse than what we’re dealing with right now. It just can’t.”
Israel is one of a growing legion of proud Pratt supporters eager to publicly back a man who, he said, “doesn’t spew the usual political B.S.”
But, much like another reality star-turned-politician who confounded pollsters when he won the presidency a decade ago, Pratt appears to be attracting significant support from voters who are not quite willing to trumpet it in public.
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