Republicans are aiming to break longtime losing streaks by taking first steps toward winning elections for governor and Los Angeles mayor as voters in head to the polls on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, President ‘s clout over the GOP will once again face a ballot box test, in a gubernatorial showdown in Iowa, while the Hawkeye State’s Democratic Senate nomination is the latest battle between the establishment and progressive wings of the party.
California and Iowa are two of the six states holding primary contests from coast to coast during the first week of June, in elections that will impact November’s midterms, when the GOP’s slim Senate and razor-thin House majorities will be up for grabs.
The election arguably grabbing the most headlines nationally is in Los Angeles, where it’s been three decades since a Republican won a mayoral contest in the nation’s second most populous city. Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star and online influencer-turned-mayoral candidate, is gaining traction, thanks in part to his populist pitch and viral videos.
Pratt, a Republican running as an independent in the left-leaning city, is backed by Trump. His rise is also fueled in part by his well-known status as one of the victims who lost their homes in last year’s devastating wildfires, when over 17,000 homes in County were destroyed, as well as his right-leaning focus on homelessness, crime and government accountability in a city long run by Democrats.
“I keep saying I become the mayor because of moms. Moms are getting me elected. Moms do not feel safe in Los Angeles. Not just feel safe, they are not safe. Nobody’s safe really in LA unless you’re the drug dealer. The drug dealers and the people giving them the needles, the city, our taxpayer money, the needle givers, they’re safe, the meth pipe givers. They’re safe. Everyone else is not safe in LA,” Pratt argued this past weekend in an interview on Fox News’ “Saturday In America with Kayleigh McEnany.”
Pratt is targeting Mayor Karen Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman seeking a second four-year term steering Los Angeles. Bass, who has been endorsed by former Vice President , a former California senator and state attorney general, as well as the state’s two Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, last week landed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s backing.
Bass is attempting to fend off challenges from the right from Pratt and on the left from progressive City Council member Nithya Raman. If no candidate tops 50% in Tuesday’s nonpartisan mayoral election, the top two finishers will face off in November.
In the race for governor, a whopping 61 candidates are running to succeed Newsom in steering the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest-economy.
But heading into the jungle primary, where all candidates regardless of party affiliation appear on the same ballot, with the top two finishers advancing to the , only a handful of contenders have a good chance of making the cut.
Among them are Democrats Javier Becerra and and Republican Steve Hilton.
Becerra, a former longtime congressman and California attorney general who later served as a Cabinet secretary in former President Biden’s administration, would become the first Latino Golden State governor in modern history. Steyer, meanwhile, is a billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental activist who unsuccessfully ran for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
Hilton is a one-time British political strategist turned American conservative commentator and former Fox News Channel host who
