Hummus and grapes with the Republican leader in Los Angeles

Los Angeles. Land of the Prius, of socially conscious stars, land of Kamala Harris and Angela Davis. Being a Republican in Los Angeles means being in the minority. Although, as Roxanne Hoge, head of the Los Angeles Republican Party, tells Il Foglio, “we have over a million registered voters in the county; we must get them to vote! We have the numbers to win!”

We meet Hoge at a private villa in Beverly Hills. Outside stands a Bentley, flanked by towering palm trees. We are just a stone’s throw from the historic hotel where Elizabeth Taylor spent six of her honeymoons. Children in white polo shirts are returning from school in Waymo cars. Hoge has prepared sheets with voting guidance – covering everything from local council to Congress, right through to sheriffs and school boards – to show to people attending this event, where they’ll be given a ballot paper to fill in and post. “Even if some candidates make us cringe, we must remember that the alternative is worse.” Hoge wants to combat the rhetoric that voting for the right in California is pointless: “It’s like giving up on a diet if you don’t see results after three days – you have to keep going,” he says, drawing an apt parallel for the audience before him: ladies from Beverly Hills worried about the arrival of communists in Los Angeles.

“This is a hugely important election, the most important one in the coming years,” says one of them, thinking about who will replace Governor Gavin Newsom, and who will be the mayor – or rather, the female mayor. On one side is the outgoing Democrat Karen Bass; on the other, the socialist – already branded as the ‘Mamdani of the West Coast’ – Nithya Raman. “So should we vote for Bass?” asks one of them with a grimace. “No!” replies Hoge with a smile, “we must vote against Nithya!” “Isn’t it better not to vote?” asks another. “No, because then the worst ones win.” One of the other guests adds: “They’re socialists, which means communists, and communism only brings poverty.” There are also party guidelines not to vote for the Social Democrats who, according to Hoge, “are like ticks; they burrow into institutions to change them”. And so, “sometimes it’s better to vote for a Democrat than for a socialist”.

“Don’t mention Trump” could well be the theme tune at meetings amongst Western conservatives. Hoge herself, who has a background as an actress – appearing in episodes of CSI and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as well as films starring Jack Nicholson – says she backed the wrong horse when there was still a chance within the GOP to avoid ‘Trumpism’, namely Senator Ted Cruz, who for a time was ahead of the then television tycoon. And so ‘Trump is not mentioned’, but the focus is on the future. “There are so many figures, capable and intelligent people to choose from,” she says of the post-Maga era, and she, who comes from Jamaica – “I have relatives there who can see Cuba from their window” – hints at a certain fondness for Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “It would be a wonderful American story, the son of immigrants becoming president.” Another attendee, wearing a fuchsia tracksuit and still deciding whom to support, expresses concern: “I’m extremely worried following the elections in Brazil, given that I’m Venezuelan.”

At the event, guests are served sandwiches with chicken salad, hummus and seedless grapes, and San Pellegrino. Among the guests are the daughter of a shoe retail magnate, who has opened her own bakery, and a well-known dentist whose practice is just a few metres from Rodeo Drive, the hub for plastic surgeons. In the post-Trump era, says Hoge, Republicans must show they have what it takes, and remember that “deep down, Trump was a moderate”. Hoge is disgusted by the idea of a tax on billionaires currently being discussed in California – “it only makes sense to people who have no idea how the free market works”– and explains that Newsom has been terrible, “spineless”, acting solely “with his sights set on the presidency, which he won’t win in 2028, because it’s easy to be a winning Democrat in California, but not in the rest of the country. He’s got a glass jaw; he’s never been punched in the face. We saw that with Harris”. He tells us that the Democrats failed to rein in the socialists because they were “drunk with power, whilst we in the Californian GOP managed to oust anti-Semitic and extremist figures. And now the Democrats are asking for our help to rid themselves of the radical left; they want our help”. Will Raman win? “Only if the conservatives don’t vote, if they cling to a sense of moral superiority that keeps them away from the ballot box, if they think the race is already over.”