Pete Buttigieg at Jimmy Carter’s church in Plains, GeorgiaHere is a taste of Elana Schor’s Associated Press piece “Democrats’ challenge: Courting evangelicals in the Trump era“:
President Donald Trump’s strong white evangelical support poses a challenge to Democrats: how to connect with a group of Christian voters whose longtime GOP lean makes them compelling antagonists in a polarized era.
Former President Barack Obama reached out to evangelicals in notable fashion during his White House bids, tapping well-known pastor Rick Warren to appear at his first inauguration and vowing to safeguard religious liberty as he launched a coalition of faith voters in 2012. While Obama’s efforts paid some dividends, Trump has complicated that task this year for Democrats who are balancing an appeal to religious voters with opposition to the sitting president’s agenda on issues important to evangelicals.
The value of making political space for more conservative-leaning evangelicals may be less urgent for Democrats now, amid a grueling primary where the party’s liberal base holds significant sway. But once Democrats choose a nominee, cutting into Trump’s popularity with white evangelicals — not to mention securing votes in minority evangelical communities — could make a pivotal difference come November’s general election.
To that end, multiple Democratic presidential hopefuls have talked about their faith on the campaign trail, weaving it into their approach to issues from health care to economics. Among the most vocal Democrats on that front is former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who asserted his party’s connection to religion last week during its final primary debate before next month’s first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus.
Read the rest here.
Of the candidates left in the Democratic primary race, only Pete Buttigieg occasionally uses Christian language. This commendable, but it is often hard to separate Buttigieg’s religious language from Democratic Party talking points. He will not win over many white evangelicals this way.
Over the last couple of years I have talked with a lot of Trump-voting evangelicals. Some go to my church. Some are in my family. Many attended one of my events on the Believe Me book tour. Others I have encountered through social media or e-mail.
Based on this anecdotal evidence, I think there are a lot of evangelicals who will vote for Trump again. I’ve even met a few evangelicals who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016, but plan to vote for Trump in 2020 because he delivered on Supreme Court justices, religious liberty (as defined by conservative evangelicals), and Israel.
But I have also met people who voted for Trump in 2016 and are looking for a justification–any justification–to vote for a Democrat in 2020. These evangelicals might vote for:
- A Democratic candidate who speaks in genuine and sincere ways about reducing the number of abortions in America. Preferably this would be a candidate who supports the Hyde Amendment.
- A Democratic candidate who recognizes the legitimate threats to religious liberty experienced by some Christian institutions. Such a candidate might endorse something like Fairness for All or embrace something akin to John Inazu‘s “confident pluralism.”
That’s it.
If a candidate will speak proactively on both of these points he or she will steal a small number of evangelical votes away from Trump. These votes may be all that is needed to defeat him. But I don’t see it happening. No such candidate exists in the Democratic field.
If a candidate is not willing to part from the Democratic Party platform on these points then I see no political reason for her or him to talk about religion on the campaign trail. Such a candidate should just take the route Hillary Clinton took in 2016– ignore evangelicals and try to win without them. Let’s remember that such a strategy almost worked–Clinton won the popular vote by three million.
