The former reality television personality-turned-independent mayoral candidate has spent the past several weeks doing something that Los Angeles's political establishment convinced itself was impossible: making incumbent Mayor Karen Bass look vulnerable.

Conventional wisdom held that a candidate like Pratt, a former television personality with no governing experience, running as an independent in a deep-blue city, had no realistic path to victory. The conventional wisdom was wrong, or at a minimum, it failed to account for how much patience voters had actually lost with the Democratic Party's incompetence.

At some point, even reliable Democratic constituencies reach a limit for how much they can tolerate. Bass may be finding out precisely where that limit sits.

Between April 19 and May 15, Pratt's campaign has raised roughly $2.7 million. Over that same stretch, Bass pulled in just $282,000. Bass has been raising money since 2024, and her total haul since then is approximately $2.8 million. Pratt nearly matched it in less than a month.

The two candidates are now separated by less than $100,000 in cash on hand, with Pratt sitting on roughly $1.42 million and Bass on approximately $1.32 million.

The money story alone would be enough to rattle the machine. The polls are another story. Pratt has been performing well in the polls, with Bass only leading by single digits in recent surveys, which means Pratt could advance to a runoff with Bass.

In a city where Democratic registration is so overwhelming that Republican candidates don't bother showing up on general election ballots, this is a huge red flag for the Bass campaign.

The Democrat establishment has heard the message loud and clear and is starting to panic. On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an endorsement of Bass - just five days before the primary.

"The work Karen Bass is doing in Los Angeles is making our entire state stronger, with an 18% decline in homelessness while it grew nationally, historic drops in violent crime, boosting film production in L.A., and protecting our communities against ICE. She has my full support for reelection," Newsom said in a statement.

Whatever the merits of the endorsement's substance, its timing speaks for itself. It reeks of desperation.

If no candidate receives a majority on the June 2nd election, a runoff election will be held on November 3rd. Newsom, making an endorsement in the race's final days, is clearly hoping to boost Bass and avoid a runoff.

Pratt was unimpressed by Newsom's 11th-hour endorsement. He responded by calling Newsom and Bass "alleged criminal partners," tying them together through their shared record on the catastrophic January wildfires and the city's homelessness crisis.