Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may want to avoid West Hollywood when he campaigns in California ahead of the state’s potentially decisive June 7 primary.
Lindsey Horvath, the mayor of West Hollywood, Calif., which is located in the heart of Los Angeles County and home to a sizable population of gay men, penned a letter to Trump this week explaining that he is unwelcome in her city.
“With the primary making its way to California, as West Hollywood’s Mayor, I want to make very clear that your campaign of violence and intimidation is not welcome in our City,” she wrote in the letter.
“From mocking people living with disabilities to classifying entire ethnicities as violent criminals to persecuting specific religious communities, Trump has pursued headlines in this election season with reckless abandon,” Horvath later explained in an op-ed for the Advocate.
Horvath, an outspoken LGBT activist and West Hollywood’s youngest elected mayor, described herself as “deeply disturbed” by Trump, who she claimed has “gone beyond [his] right to express a political point of view or policy differences.”
“As Mayor of West Hollywood, it is my primary responsibility to keep our community safe,” she wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner.
According to Horvath, West Hollywood was previously welcomed politicians from both parties to hold campaign events in the city. “[But] those same Horvath courtesies will not be extended to the Trump campaign,” she claims.
The 34-year-old mayor has already instructed City staff that they are able to refuse to issue special events permits to Trump should he attempt to schedule a rally in the Los Angeles County city, and “such actions are well with [their] right[s],” Horvath told the Examiner.
With a little over two months left to go until Trump competes in California’s Republican primary, Horvath has also called on the other 87 mayors in Los Angeles County to follow suit and block the billionaire from campaigning in their cities.
A University of Southern California/Los Angeles Times survey released last Sunday showed Trump polling just 7 percentage points ahead of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Golden State. California awards 172 delegates, the most of any state, on a proportional basis to the winner of is Republican primary.
