The campaign for religious voters

ZEBULON, Ga.—Shannon Spraggins and her teenage son lined up outside Christ Chapel Community Church at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday. The school district canceled classes for the day while the small town of Zebulon south of Atlanta prepared for a high-profile political visit. At about 4 p.m., former President Donald Trump arrived for a faith-based town hall meeting, the latest stop on the campaign’s Believers and Ballots tour. The Christ Chapel sanctuary filled to capacity, with hundreds more people watching via video in the parking lot.

“We love the fact that he’s taking time to stop and hear us even though we already support him,” Spraggins told WORLD. “He’s sitting down with our local pastor to just talk about things that we value in our small town, and we love that.”

Just a few days earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at two churches in Georgia as part of her Souls to the Polls tour. While both candidates stump in battleground states, they are also in a tug-of-war for religious voters who might be less likely to show up at the ballot box this year.

Arizona Christian University pollster George Barna recently released survey results showing that roughly 32 million regular churchgoers do not plan on voting in the presidential election.

“This research underscores the fact that simply encouraging people to vote in order to fulfill their Biblical responsibility would not only be seen as doing their job while helping the community, but an estimated 5 million regular churchgoers would be likely to vote as a result of that simple exhortation,” Barna wrote. “That, in itself, could change the outcome of the election by simply doing their job and getting congregants to fulfill one of their chief duties as an American citizen.”

At the event, Trump said that Christians “are not tremendous voters. If they were, we would never lose an election.” He added that he expects more Christians to vote this year because “the last four years have been a horror show.” According to AP VoteCast, the majority of white evangelical Americans voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Vice President Kamala Harris attended two historically African American churches in Georgia on Sunday, speaking from the pulpit to similarly packed sanctuaries. Throughout the South, African American churches often bus congregants to early voting locations. The tradition started in the early days of desegregation when voters of color traveled in groups for safety.

Black churches are more than twice as likely to engage in election-related activity compared with other Christian churches, according to the Arizona Christian University survey. They host frequent visits from politicians, disseminate voter guides, and encourage participation in the democratic system. Barna found 55 percent of traditionally black churches register congregants to vote compared to only 25 percent of all other Christian churches.

“If you want to talk about the greatest merger of faith and politics in America, that happens mostly within the black church,” Jacob Neiheisel, an associate political science professor at the University at Buffalo, told WORLD. “Survey after survey shows that they’re the most comfortable talking about politics in that setting, largely because of the historic role the black church has played within the African American community writ large. Because African Americans were shut out of so many aspects of civil society for so long, the black church became all things to all people, including political mobilization.”

At both churches on Sunday, Harris retold the parable in the Gospel of Luke about the Good Samaritan. While she did not specifically mention Trump, she warned against people who “sow hatred, chaos, and division.” At her campaign launch this summer, Harris called the presidential election “a choice between freedom or chaos.”

“This is a moment that is challenging our fundamental values and challenging us as Americans and as people of faith,” Harris said at New Birth Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Ga. “And then as the Samaritan reminds us, it is not enough to preach the values of compassion and respect. We must live them. Faith is a verb.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a service at New Birth Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Ga., Sunday. Associated Press/Photo by Jacquelyn Martin

Harris wrote the same line in her 2019 memoir The Truths We Hold. On the campaign trail, she has not typically discussed religion beyond saying that she grew up attending a black church and a Hindu temple. When asked about faith, Harris argues that good deeds demonstrate faith.

Leaders of the group Evangelicals for Harris say that her record as a prosecutor demonstrates Harris’ commitment to justice. On regular Zoom calls for Harris supporters, pastors across the country argue that Trump is not a Christian because his policies do not help communities. On the other hand, they claim Harris’ policies showcase a faith she does not often speak about.

“I think it is important to note that I do not agree with everything Harris stands for, but we do agree on the essentials — justice, fairness, and freedom,” Pennsylvania pastor and farmer Lee Scott wrote for Lancaster Online. He is also a leader for Evangelicals for Harris. “And on those issues where we don’t agree, I’ll be grateful to have someone in office whose Christian faith guides not only her decision-making, but her core character, and how she will treat those who disagree with her.”

Others in the evangelical community say they have found more common ground with Trump and his policies. When asked whether they think Trump is a Christian, voters in Zebulon pointed to his accomplishments in the White House. They praised lower inflation rates during the Trump administration, fewer illegal border crossings, and his appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices. By contrast, they argued that Harris’ pro-abortion stances go against Biblical values.

“Obviously, every candidate should be out there campaigning, but Harris’ positions on the issues don’t align with Biblical values,” Mary Thomas, executive director of the Hispanic Vote Project told WORLD. Thomas previously worked in the Department of Justice during the Trump administration as a faith-based director. She now partners with Hispanic faith leaders to encourage congregations to vote.

“Just look at her record and her positions compared to Trump’s positions,” Thomas said. “He is very pro-life. He basically got Roe v. Wade overturned. But Harris has supported extreme positions where, such as the Women’s Health Protection Act, they would basically allow abortions even after a baby is born. With regard to Trump, [his campaigning at churches] strikes me as genuine because his record backs it up. If you look at Harris, I think it’s pandering and trying to get the vote because her record is not in accordance with Biblical values.”

Michael Wear, the president and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, said the religious outreach of presidential campaigns in this election cycle has been less substantive than in years past.

“2016 wasn’t full of policy commitments, but Trump did have a list of Supreme Court nominees. It was striking in its specificity,” Wear said. “In 2008, Barack Obama went to Zanesville, Ohio, and gave a speech about his vision for the office of faith-based and community initiatives. It wasn’t the longest speech in the world, but we had 20 minutes in which he spoke about how government and religious life ought to interact. We don’t have anything of that level of particularity in these campaigns.”

Wear formerly worked in the Obama administration’s faith-based initiative. He noted that the campaigns have specifically targeted religious areas where they need greater turnout. The latest Georgia polls find Trump roughly 1 percentage point ahead of Harris. Although most African American voters support Harris, her numbers are faltering among young black men. In Georgia, Trump lost the state by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.

Most churches do not participate in partisan events because they are designated by the IRS as 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations. The Johnson Amendment of the tax code prohibits nonprofits from endorsing or opposing political candidates if they want to remain tax-exempt. That does not prevent churches from hosting candidates, but they are not allowed to tell congregants to vote for that candidate.

But the law is rarely enforced. In Detroit, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell has hosted Trump in his church several times to discuss campaign issues in front of the congregation. In Georgia, New Birth Senior Pastor Jamal Bryant told CNN that he wanted to urge men in his church to support women in office, specifically Harris.

Neiheisel from the University of Buffalo said that while church engagement in political activism is common, it might not have a measurable effect on the election this year. He argued that Barna’s findings may be inaccurate because respondents answered in August. Most Americans do not pay much attention to politics or make a plan to vote until October. Despite several upsets in this year’s campaigns—includinga change in the Democratic nominee and assassination attempts on Trump—Neiheisel said historical trends remain firm.

“If you’re going to look at which flavors of religious experience or expression are going to be the most politically active, it tends to be the black church followed by Catholics and then evangelicals in third place,” Neiheisel said. “So when religious leaders say you need to go vote, we actually don’t find much of a direct effect in terms of changing people’s minds or behavior.”

In Zebulon on Wednesday, attendees at Trump’s Believers and Ballots event removed their red caps to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and some tacked on an “amen” at the end. When Trump asked if the attendees had voted early, about three-fourths of them responded with a raised hand. A first-time voter and aspiring pastor asked Trump the final town hall question: “What do I need to know before I go vote?”

Trump replied, “I’ll give you a different kind of answer.” Then he ran over his key policy promises for the 2024 election. He promised to close the southern border, deport illegal migrants who he claimed were coming from insane asylums, drill for more oil, and lower energy and consumer prices.

Attendees left the event energized.

“He is the closest candidate to what my beliefs are,” local retiree Elaine Moody said. “I’m not trying to judge him. America needs to return to God, but right now I think the Lord is using Donald Trump.”

Bekah McCallum assisted with reporting from Zebulon, Ga.