WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has been drumming up support for conservative evangelicals since he burst onto the political scene nearly a decade ago. Now he’s selling Trump-themed Bibles, promoting the overturn of Roe v. Wade and imploring Christians to vote for him.
But a diminutive and diverse coalition of evangelicals is trying to draw their fellow believers out of Trump’s fold by offering them not only a different candidate to support, but also a completely different vision of their faith.
Grassroots groups like Evangelicals for Harris have taken out ads and launched a Zoom call, arguing that despite some policy differences with the vice president, she is the better choice in this election.
Here are some insights from the AP report on evangelicals supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
Exploiting cracks in Trump’s evangelical base
Trump has always enjoyed robust support among evangelical voters. According to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive poll of voters, about 8 in 10 evangelical voters voted for him in 2020.
But some evangelicals are using the perceived cracks in Trump’s political loyalty to distance themselves even further from the former president, especially as Trump and his surrogates remain undecided on whether he would sign a federal abortion ban if he became president.
Texas Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic, who spoke at the Evangelicals for Harris rally, said he saw no “moral superiority of one party over the other,” citing the Republicans’ recent platform, which did not include a nationwide ban on abortion and which had softened its stance on same-sex marriage.
Although he has voted Republican in the past, McKissic said he would vote for Harris because he believes she has the stronger character and better qualifications.
Presbyterian pastor Lee Scott, a member of Evangelicals for Harris, said he is against abortion and does not agree with Harris on all issues. “But at the same time, she has a pro-family platform,” he said, pointing to her education policies and her promise to augment the child tax credit.
With modest funding in 2020, the group formerly known as Evangelicals for Biden targeted evangelical voters in swing states. This election, the organization’s president, the Rev. Jim Ball, said they plan to expand the operation and spend $1 million on targeted advertising.
While white evangelicals overwhelmingly vote Republican, not all evangelicals are a sure-fire Republican candidate, and in a close race, every vote counts.
In 2020, Biden won about 2 in 10 white evangelicals, but did better among evangelical voters overall, winning about a third of that group, according to AP VoteCast. A September AP-NORC poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans who identify as “born again” or “evangelical” have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of Harris, but that unfavorability rises to 8 in 10 among white evangelicals.
Working with the campaign
In August, Harris’ campaign hired the Reverend Jen Butler, a Presbyterian minister and experienced organizer of religious missionaries, to lead the religious mission.
Butler told AP she is in contact with evangelicals for Harris and wants to utilize the influence of grassroots groups to reach religious voters.
The campaign is focusing on black Protestants and evangelical Latinos, especially in key swing states. It is reaching out to Catholics and mainstream Protestants in the Rust Belt, as well as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona and Nevada. Butler’s colleagues are working with Jewish and Muslim voting groups.
The groups Catholics for Harris and Interfaith for Harris are founded. Established Protestant groups such as Black Church PAC and Christians for Kamala also campaign for the vice president.
Butler said the Harris campaign could find common ground with evangelicals, particularly suburban evangelical women, who wanted a compassionate approach to issues like immigration and abortion.
Introducing a fresh evangelical identity
The chorus of evangelicals who think it is unconscionable to vote for a Democrat remains clamorous.
The term “evangelical” itself is tricky and has become synonymous with the Republican Party, argues Ryan Burge, professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University.
The term evangelicalism has historically referred to Christians who hold conservative theological views on issues such as the meaning of the Bible and the fresh birth, but that has changed as the term has become increasingly associated with Republican voters.
Latasha Morrison told AP that as a black woman, she didn’t identify as an evangelical until she began attending predominantly white churches. For years, her anti-abortion stance led her to vote Republican, but this election she believes women and children will be better off under a Harris administration.
Soong-Chan Rah, a professor of evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, said that by supporting Harris, he hopes to “show that there are other voices in the church besides the religious right and Trump evangelicals.”
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