Provo
Image via RNS/Evan McMullin
The Utah Republican is on 11 state ballots. He has no major-party backing, and he’s little known outside of the Beehive State.
But Mormon disaffection with Donald Trump is offering the Provo-born graduate of Brigham Young University a chance to disrupt the outcome in this reliably red state, which has not gone to the Democrats since 1964.
Two students study mormon scriptures at the Missionary Training Center. Photo courtesy Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/RNS.
The 35-acre campus is an island of young people, where teens and 20-somethings outnumber grownups by 10-to-1.
The place is awash in fresh-faced students, and even the workers — from the cafeteria to the copy center, the mailroom to the bookstore — and most of the teachers are under 30.
It’s no “Animal House,” though, with raucous frats, food fights, and binge drinking. This is Mormonism’s elite Missionary Training Center, where the men wear white shirts and ties, the women don modest skirts and dresses and everyone is expected to heed the rules.