These Evangelicals Are Voting Their Values ​​— By Supporting Kamala Harris

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Rev. Lee Scott publicly endorsed Kamala Harris for president during an Aug. 14 Zoom call of evangelicals for Harris, the Presbyterian pastor and farmer said he was taking a risk.

“The easiest thing we could do this year would be to keep our heads down, go to the polls, keep our vote a secret and mind our own business,” Scott told the group, which organizers said drew about 3,200 viewers. “But right now, I just can’t do that.”

Scott lives in Butler, Pennsylvania, the identical town where the potential killer was staying. shot former President Donald Trump in July. Scott told the Associated Press that the attack and its aftermath impact on his community prompted him to talk out against Trump and the “vitriolic” and “acceptable violence” he delivered to politics.

Trump maintained strong support amongst white evangelical voters. About 8 in 10 white evangelical voters voted for him in 2020, based on AP VoteForged, a survey of the electorate. But a small and diverse coalition of evangelicals is seeking to lure their coreligionists away from the previous president by offering not only an alternate candidate to support but additionally an alternate vision of their faith.

“I’m tired of watching meanness, bigotry and recreational cruelty being the global witness to our faith,” Scott said in the course of the conversation. “I want transformation, and transformation is risky business.”

Exploiting Cracks in Trump’s Evangelical Base

Trump was very courteous white conservative evangelicals since he got here onto the political scene almost a decade ago. Now he’s selling Trump-themed Biblespersuading overturning Roe v. Wade and he begged Christians to steer him to vote.

Some evangelicals, nonetheless, have seized on alleged cracks in his political allegiances to further distance themselves from the previous president, especially as Trump and his deputies I used to be hesitant whether he would do it sign a federal abortion ban should develop into president.

The Rev. Dwight McKissic, a Baptist pastor from Texas who weighed in on the evangelicals’ call to support Harris, said he saw “no moral superiority of one party over the other,” citing the Republican Party’s decision to “abandon its commitment to banning abortion through a constitutional amendment” and soften its stance on same-sex marriage in its platform.

McKissic said that while he has historically voted Republican, he’ll vote for Harris because he believes she has stronger character and qualifications.

“I certainly disagree with her on all policy issues,” said Scott, who identifies as an evangelical and is ordained within the mainline Presbyterian Church in the usA. “I’m pro-life. I’m anti-abortion. But at the same time, she has a pro-family platform,” citing Harris’ education policies and promise extend child tax relief.

Grassroots groups like Evangelicals for Harris are hoping to persuade like-minded evangelicals to support Harris relatively than vote for Trump or not vote in any respect.

With modest funding in 2020, the group, formerly generally known as Evangelicals for Biden, has been targeting evangelical voters in swing states. This election, the Rev. Jim Ball, the organization’s president, said they’re expanding and plan to spend $1 million on targeted ads.

While white evangelicals overwhelmingly vote Republican, not all evangelicals are GOP protected bets, and in a closely contested race, every vote counts.

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In 2020, Biden won amongst about 2 in 10 white evangelical voters but fared higher amongst evangelicals overall, based on AP VoteForged, winning a couple of third of that group. A September AP-NORC poll found that about 6 in 10 Americans who discover as “born again” or “evangelical” have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Harris, but a couple of third have a positive view of her. A majority — about 8 in 10 — of white evangelicals have an unfavorable view of Harris.

The same group, Vote Common Good, led by progressive evangelical pastor Doug Pagitt, has a straightforward message: political identity and spiritual identity usually are not related.

“There’s a whole group that felt very uncomfortable voting for Trump,” Pagitt said. “We’re not trying to change their minds. We’re trying to work with them once they change their minds to act on that change.”

Working with the campaign

In August, the Harris campaign hired Rev. Jen Butler, a Presbyterian minister (USA) and veteran faith organizer, to steer faith outreach.

Butler told the AP she has been in contact with evangelicals for Harris. With lower than two months until Election Day, she wants to make use of the facility of grassroots groups to quickly engage much more voters of the religion.

“We want to mobilize our voters, and we think we have real potential to reach people who have voted Republican in the past,” Butler said.

They deal with black and Latino evangelicals, especially in key swing states. They reach out to Catholics and mainline Protestants within the Rust Belt and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona and Nevada. Butler’s colleagues work with Jewish and Muslim constituencies.

Catholics for Harris and Interfaith for Harris are each within the works. Mainstream Protestant groups like Black Church PAC and Christians for Kamala are also campaigning on behalf of the vice chairman.

Butler, who was raised an evangelical in Georgia, said Harris’ campaign could find common ground with evangelicals, especially suburban evangelicals.

“There are a whole range of issues that they care about,” she said, citing compassionate approaches to immigration and abortion. “They know that the way to solve any pro-life issues is to really support women.”

Hard sell

Even for evangelicals who dislike Trump, supporting the Democrat could also be difficult.

Russell Jeong, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and a speaker on the Evangelicals for Harris rally, told the AP that the group “doesn’t agree with everything Harris stands for” and that evangelicals can “hold the party accountable by getting involved.”

Other participants within the conversation noted that they’d use their voices to pressure Harris on issues they disagree with. Latinx evangelical activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal said she would push for a possible Harris administration “to better address the Palestinian-Israeli relationship, as well as immigration.”

Soong-Chan Rah, a professor of evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, describes himself as a nonpartisan progressive evangelical and a “prophet speaking to broken systems.” Although he has never endorsed a candidate before, he said the stakes on this election are so high that he desires to throw his public support behind Harris.

“Not only do I find this candidate, Trump, disgusting and repulsive,” Rah said, “but it’s so extreme that I want to support his opposition.”

Yet the chorus of evangelicals who find voting for Democrats unacceptable stays loud.

Pro-Trump evangelical cult leader Sean Feucht ridiculed the existence of pro-Harris evangelicals on X: “HERETICS FOR HARRIS rings so much truer!”

The Rev. Franklin Graham, a longtime Trump supporter, took issue with one in every of the group’s ads and its use of footage of his late father, the Rev. Billy Graham. “Liberals are using everything they can to promote candidate Harris,” he wrote on his public Facebook page, which has 10 million followers.

Imagining a New Gospel Identity

But the project of supporting democratic evangelical voters goes beyond partisan politics. It goes to the guts of what evangelicalism means.

The term “evangelical” itself is loaded with meaning and has develop into synonymous with the Republican Party, said Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University.

“Most people are probably evangelical theologically,” Burge said, “but they don’t get that word because they don’t vote for Trump or they’re moderate or liberal.”

Evangelicalism has historically referred to Christians who hold conservative theological beliefs about issues comparable to the meaning of the Bible and being born again. However, this has modified because the term has develop into more related to Republican Party voters.

Many imagine that evangelicalism must be defined primarily along racial and sociopolitical lines, and by endorsing Harris, Rah hopes to “show that there are other voices in the church besides the religious right and Trump evangelicals.”

Latasha Morrison, a speaker on the Harris Zoom evangelical conference, told the AP that as a black woman, “I never identified with the word ‘evangelical’ until I started attending predominantly white churches.”

For years, her anti-abortion views led her to vote Republican, but now the Christian writer and variety coach says, “I believe women and children have a better chance under the Harris administration than they did under the Trump administration.”

Ball, an organizer of Evangelicals for Harris, doesn’t intend to “tell people whether they’re evangelical” or not.

“Diversity is our strength. We are not looking for total unanimity. We are looking for unity,” Ball said. “We can be united as long as we have differences.”