Activists cite gas prices, cost of living as evangelical concerns
President Trump’s approval rating among white evangelicals has fallen by double digits in three new polls, a drop that has made some conservative activists nervous on the eve of the congressional midterms. Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins reported the shift for NPR, speaking with pastors, historians and organizers about what is driving it.
White evangelicals have formed the most loyal part of Trump’s base since 2016. Around 8 in 10 approved of his actions in the White House as of early last year, according to the report, but the number has been dropping precipitously in recent weeks. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found Trump’s approval rating among white evangelicals down 20 points, from 78% to 58%.
Pastor Robert Jeffress, who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, and is one of the most vocal evangelical supporters of the president, said he remains bullish on Trump but is concerned about how factors such as prices at the pump are pulling his approval rating down. “You know, evangelicals have to fill up their tanks with gasoline as well,” Jeffress said.
Kristin Du Mez, a historian who studies evangelicalism at Calvin University, said the decline reflects economic trends affecting nearly every demographic. “Yeah. This is probably one of the very few times I’ll go on record agreeing with Robert Jeffress,” Du Mez said. “Inasmuch as there is a decline in evangelical support for Trump, I would interpret it in terms of the economy, in terms of, you know, these general trends that we’re seeing across nearly every demographic.”
Ralph Reed, a longtime evangelical activist and political consultant known as one of the architects of the religious right, said the concerns he is hearing are economic. “We’re hearing what you would expect to hear, which is concerns about cost of living, concerns about gas prices,” Reed said.
Michael Weir, a Democrat and evangelical organizer who helped former President Obama court religious voters, said the drop may signal evangelical exhaustion with the president. “I don’t think we’re going to see massive, massive swings of conservative evangelicals voting for Democrats, but there is a bit of buyer’s remorse, a bit of this is not what we signed up for, a bit of just weariness with it all,” Weir said.
Du Mez said some conservative evangelicals are responding to the economic pressure by rallying their faithful back to Trump and Republicans. “That is rhetoric that I am hearing from conservative evangelicals. Yes, these gas prices are wild right now. But if we are ensuring a safe country for our children, it is all worth it. We are willing to pay the price,” Du Mez said.
The decline comes on the eve of the congressional midterms, and Reed is working to combat it. At a Trump rally in Dalton, Georgia, he planned to recruit volunteers to help turn out evangelical voters in the midterm elections, and he said organizers are peppering evangelical voters with messages that tap into longstanding concerns about Democrats’ more liberal positions on issues such as Israel, LGBTQ rights and abortion. “You get into the pro-life issues and the gender issues. And all that is on our voter guides that are going into churches. It’s on all the door hangers,” Reed said.
In the past, Trump’s support among evangelicals has dipped and then recovered, according to the report. But it has never dropped this far, this close to an election, and the key question now is whether the downward trend will continue.