Evangelicals are considered Trump's core supporters... Christian groups encourage voting
Candidates such as democracy and pastors are also put forward... Trump: "He's not one of us."
(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Lee Yu-mi = With the U.S. midterm elections just three weeks away, the Republican Party is working hard to increase voter turnout among white evangelicals, President Donald Trump's core support base.
The Democratic Party is also targeting the votes of white Christian voters, the traditional Republican support base, with candidates who emphasize Christian values, and the competition between the two parties to secure Christian votes is intensifying ahead of the election.
CNN reported on the 13th (local time) that there is growing concern within the Republican Party that if white evangelicals do not actively participate in voting, victory could be lost to the Democratic Party in key battlegrounds where seats in the Federal Assembly are at stake.
White evangelicals, who emphasize the authority of the Bible and the spread of the gospel, are considered one of President Trump's strongest support base.
According to the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), approximately 8 in 10 white evangelicals voted for President Trump in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections.
Although they make up only 13% of the total U.S. population, their voter turnout is so high that they often make up around 20% of all voters in elections.
โ38% of voters who voted for Trump were white evangelicals,โ said Ryan Burge, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. โ(The Republican Party) cannot win without evangelical votes.โ
However, there are observations that the sharp rise in gasoline and food prices and the plunge in President Trump's approval rating may have a negative impact on evangelical voters' participation in voting.
A conservative pastor in Texas, who requested anonymity, pointed out that it is dangerous to assume that evangelical voters will naturally show up at the polls.
Accordingly, groups such as the Faith and Liberty Coalition, a conservative Christian group, are conducting voting encouragement activities targeting evangelical voters who actively vote in presidential elections but do not show up in midterm elections.
The Democratic Party appears to be attempting to expand support from white Christian voters by putting candidates with religious backgrounds at the forefront.
Representative examples include James Talarico, a seminary graduate running for the Texas U.S. Senate, and pastor Adam Hamilton, running for the Kansas State Senate.
The Democratic Party emphasizes values โโsuch as 'love of neighbors' beyond existing religious issues such as abortion and sexual minority rights, and connects this with the party's stance against hard-line immigration crackdowns and medical budget cuts.
President Trump directly checked the Democratic Party's strategy.
On the 12th, President Trump targeted candidate Hamilton through the social media platform Truth Social, saying, "I don't want Hamilton to be my pastor," and criticized him, saying, "He has only brought chaos to his church, and because of that, the church has become divided, and it has virtually reached the point where they are at war with each other."
โAs someone who has received the overwhelming support of evangelical voters, I can assure you that Adam Hamilton is not one of us,โ he said.
At the same time, he reaffirmed his support for Republican candidate Roger Marshall, the current senator from Kansas, and announced that he would hold a support campaign in Kansas in the near future.
PRRI Director Robert Jones said there were no clear signs that white evangelicals would withdraw their support for President Trump, but analyzed that the votes of white mainline Protestants and Catholics, who have relatively diverse political inclinations, could be an important variable in close combat areas.
