One of the Few Trump Precincts in LA Was Apparently Carried by Scientologists

For all of President Donald Trump’s protests that he would have won California if he campaigned more there, it’s not as if he had no victories in the state. In Los Angeles, the largest city in the state, he won seven of 1,700 precincts. The Los Angeles Times decided to look into the voter rolls and demographics of those precincts and found something interesting about one of them: Precinct 9000784A, located between Fountain Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard, went to Trump by just three votes, tallied at 347 to 344. The neighborhood is best known for a large Church of Scientology complex,  and of approximately 1,100 voters registered in the precinct, “about half” had listed their addresses as being at Scientology buildings.

In a statement to the Times, Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for the church, pointed out that under their tax exempt status, they cannot (and do not) endorse political candidates. “The Church does not engage in election activities and cannot do so,” she wrote. “Such decisions are not a matter of faith. The Creed of the Church makes clear that Scientology is open to all. This would include anyone regardless of their race, color, creed or political affiliation.”

In addition, 170 voters in the precinct listed church phone numbers on their registrations. While phone numbers are not required for California voter registrations, the most commonly listed number on registrations in the state belong to the church, as do the second, fifth, and sixth most common numbers.

Of the few church members who were willing to speak to the Times, only one offered a theory as to why Scientologists would vote for Trump en masse: They saw Hillary Clinton as pro-psychiatry. “Scientology is the No. 1 foe of psychiatry,” he said.