🌊 How Evangelicals Lost the White House

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In our travels across the swing states last year, we learned a ton about the importance of political “ground game” and coalition building. These, of course, were terms we had read and heard about for years, but you develop a special appreciation of their significance when you’re in rural Georgia or suburban Michigan – places where voter turnout and swing voters’ decisions can be fickle and decide an election. 

Each party is made up of many interest groups. On the conservative side, Evangelical Christians have long been the most influential. Yet their power – both to sway policies and staff the White House – has weakened dramatically. In this story, we explore why and feature an interview with a prominent Evangelical leader, Reverend Doctor Matthew Kaemingk.

By Max Towey

For the last half-century, no force has exerted greater influence on the Republican Party than Evangelical Christians.

Roughly a quarter of Americans are Evangelical Christians, and for decades they’ve served as the bedrock of the conservative movement, playing an outsize role in Republican policies, primaries, and presidential elections.

But that may be starting to change: When you look at the White House today, it’s unrecognizable for a Republican administration. 

Evangelical Christians advocate for traditional and family-based values. In the Trump White House, we see everything but: The president has five kids from three marriages; Elon Musk has 13 from four women; RFK Jr. is pro-choice and twice divorced; Tulsi Gabbard is pro-choice and twice divorced; Attorney General Pam Bondi is twice divorced; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is twice divorced; and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is divorced. The only leading Trump figures who’ve remained married are Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic who married a Hindu; Marco Rubio, a Catholic who married a Dolphins cheerleader; and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is gay. 

You might think this reflects little, but in politics, appearances are everything. For a Republican administration to look like this 10 years ago would have been unthinkable. 

And it’s not just White House optics that have the evangelical glean: The policies have shifted, too. Social conservatism is now on the back burner. The Trump Administration’s positions on gay marriage and abortion might’ve been taken as moderate Democratic positions just 12 years ago. 

So what happened? How did evangelical influence decline while their support for Trump remains sky-high? How did they become so powerful in the first place?

Let’s wind back the clocks to 1973, the year The Exorcist hit theaters, “Crocodile Rock” bumped in night clubs, and the Supreme Court turned the US political order upside down.

Editor’s Note

Thank you all for reading on this fine Saturday morning. As always, please send in your thoughts on today’s reporting! We’d love to hear your takes on the Evangelicals’ rise — and then decline — in political influence.

For anyone catching up on our deep-dives, here are the latest:

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• The Cancel Culture Billionaire

• Meet the philosopher king of the military-industrial complex

• The 1993 dinner that consolidated the US defense industry

That’s a wrap. Enjoy your weekends!

–Max and Max