Picture the ideal Trump base. Just off the top of my head, maybe it’d be a mansion full of celebrity-obsessed conspiracy theorists who believe they’re secretly extraterrestrial gods? And that the only way to release their inner godliness is to keep funneling money to a pasty, pockmarked middle-aged man with a plastic combover? And that if someone wrongs you you should lock them in a windowless shed?
Of the 1,700 precincts in the overwhelmingly liberal city of Los Angeles, only seven voted for Donald Trump. Obviously, the Church of Scientology’s “Big Blue” complex was in one of them.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Trump won the neighborhood by three—347 to 344—and it’s the first time it went Republican since at least 2000. Of the approximately 1,100 voters registered in the precinct, around half live on Scientology property.
“The Church does not engage in election activities and cannot do so,” said Scientology spokesperson Karin Pouw in an email to the Times. “The Church remained neutral in the presidential election as we always do. We support this country’s electoral process and America’s representative form of government, and respect the right of parishioners, our staff and clergy to vote for the candidate of choice.”
James Kronwall, a registered Republican who lives on L. Ron Hubbard Way, provided the Times with a working theory as to why the precinct went red: “Scientology is the No. 1 foe of psychiatry.”