Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt and Mayor Karen Bass escalated their campaign feud on Wednesday amid accusations of election law violations.
In an emailed statement to NTD, Bass’s campaign called the complaint "completely false” and argued there were two locations filmed in the video and the sites were more than 200 feet apart, with no signs outside the ballot box.
“Spencer is just mad that his supporters are AI cartoons and we have real Angelenos. We follow the rules,” Alex Stack, campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.
The escalation comes as early voting is underway ahead of the June 2 mayoral primary.
Pratt, a former television reality star, is seeking a top spot in the June primary to advance to a November runoff against Bass, a Democrat who has been struggling to recover from her response to devastating wildfires last year.
The city last elected a Republican mayor in 1997.
Pratt has pitched himself as a newcomer and political outsider, while Bass has touted her experience and highlighted her achievements in office.
He first announced his campaign in January at an event marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly Palisades Fire, which destroyed his own home and thousands of others. In an ad released late last month, Pratt used his Airstream trailer to demonstrate the impacts of the fire and compared it to the cozy neighborhoods of his opponents, but faced backlash after TMZ revealed he actually lives in a Bel Air hotel, a situation that Pratt described as a temporary living situation necessary due to unspecified security concerns.