The conservative evangelical Christians who helped send US President Donald Trump to the White House four years ago stuck by him this year, but even if Trump does not win a second term, some see reasons to celebrate the election results.
White evangelical voters made up 23 percent of the vote nationwide and overwhelmingly favored Trump, with about eight in 10 backing him, AP VoteCast data showed.
Their support might not be enough to re-elect the president — with former US vice president Joe Biden in the lead as states continued to count votes — yet evangelicals still took heart in their strong presence at the polls and the Republican success in down-ballot races.
Photo: AP
“There’s no question that we did our job,” said Ralph Reed, a veteran Republican activist who founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition nonprofit, referring to the voting bloc.
Reed left room for the president to eke out a victory, but he also singled out Democrats’ lackluster showing in congressional races as a positive sign and suggested that conservatives might see an opportunity to work with a Biden administration that tacks away from the left.
“Should President Trump come up short — if that’s what ends up happening — other than that, it was a very impressive cycle for voters of faith and for social conservatives in the Republican Party,” Reed said.
The Trump campaign also worked to appeal to Latino voters and saw signs of improvement with that demographic in several states.
Samuel Rodriguez, a Latino evangelical pastor who has advised Trump, said that those advances with Latino voters are one reason that evangelicals should view the election as “a win” for their priorities.
“I would argue, with great due deference to our president, that if we fall short, it’s not due to the evangelical agenda of life, religious liberty and biblical justice,” Rodriguez said. “It was more a rejection of the personality.”
“If we can reconcile the message and the messenger, I think the future looks pretty amazing,” Rodriguez said.
Biden’s campaign had tried to peel off parts of Trump’s evangelical base as part of its faith outreach operation.
However, Robert Jones, author of two books about white Christians, said that there was no erosion of white evangelicals’ support for Trump and the Republican party in this election — and that applied to men and women in that demographic.
“They absolutely stood by their man,” Jones said.
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