Evangelicals Who Support Kamala Harris : NPR

Donald Trump won the support of more than 80% of white evangelicals in 2016 and 2020, but a new group is trying hard to steer some of those voters to Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

The political action committee Harris Evangelicals is running a series of digital ads, including one that features an archival video of the late evangelical preacher Billy Graham asking, “Have you ever hung on the cross and said, ‘Lord, I have sinned?'”

These words were contrasted with a video of Trump being asked publicly in 2015, “Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?”

Trump responded: “I don’t know if that’s true or not. I just don’t bring God into the picture. I don’t.”

Evangelical supporters of Harris have also been running an ad on various digital platforms, including YouTube, in which Kamala Harris speaks about her faith. The ad, titled “Fruit of the Spirit,” shows Harris speaking during a speech, saying, “Faith is what motivates us to act. Faith inspires us and gives us purpose.”

In addition to the online ads, the group is working with local activists to hold in-person events in battleground states, including one leader, Patricia Ruiz Cantu, a Milwaukee resident who describes herself as an evangelical Christian.

“Here in Wisconsin, we have faith meetings,” she said, “and we bring different congregations together to talk about values, hear their concerns and try to figure out how we can work together.”

Ruiz-Cantu knows some evangelical voters may disagree with Harris’ stance on abortion, but she believes those same voters could be swayed on other issues that are deeply rooted in Christian tradition.

“The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself,” she says. “Jesus Christ came for those in need. The Bible says, ‘Have you seen me hungry and given me food? Have you seen me thirsty and given me water?'”

Some evangelicals want to broaden the dialogue about values

Among evangelicals who support Harris are health care, poverty and the environment, issues that the group’s founder, the Rev. Jim Ball, calls “family values” because they underpin real family. And he Those values Because the Bible says so.

“Jesus was a friend of the underdog,” said Ball, who lives in Vienna, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. “Jesus was always helping the underdog, so we’re especially concerned about the underdog in our society, and so we think about whose policies are more aligned with protecting and advocating for the underdog.”

For Ball, the answer is Kamala Harris, who has often challenged evangelical tradition and her evangelical brethren on certain issues. She heads the Evangelical Environmental Network and has written a book called Global Warming and the Risen Lord: Christians and Climate Change.

Ball said the evangelical message of support for Harris is resonating with many people: More than 200,000 people have registered to attend local rallies and town hall meetings, including some who are unlikely to attend.

For some evangelicals, the switch to Harris is complicated

The Rev. Lee Scott is a Presbyterian minister in Pittsburgh and a registered Republican since he was 18. “I voted for George W. Bush for the first time,” he says proudly.

But his dominance over Trump and the Republican Party over the past decade has Scott talking to friends, family and other clergy in the battleground state of Pennsylvania about why he supports the Harris and Walz campaigns. It’s a nuanced, complicated conversation.

“Many of their policy positions are ones I personally cannot support,” Scott said. “We are very far apart on the issue of abortion, but we can’t just say, ‘Abortion is bad.'”

Scott said Harris answers questions Republicans have been unable to answer in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned federal abortion rights.

“So how do we support new mothers? How do we fund them?” he asks. “That’s what she [Harris’s] “I’m pleased that she’s looking to expand the child tax credit,” Scott said, saying the credit would help support people who might choose to terminate a pregnancy out of fear they won’t be able to afford to support their child.

Other evangelicals see abortion as a compromise

Still, many conservative Christians have rebelled against evangelicals for supporting Harris. Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, has questioned the use of his father’s image and words in evangelical ads endorsing Harris. In a post on X, Graham said he “appreciates” President Trump’s “conservative values ​​and policies” and would continue to do so if he were alive today.

Michael Brown, another prominent evangelical leader, said in a recent episode of his popular show, Line of Fire Podcasts and radio shows that argue the issue of abortion is a deal-breaker.

“Because it affects the most innocent and the most vulnerable,” Brown told the audience, “and because the Bible talks about shedding innocent blood and doing anything to hurt the little ones.”

For decades, evangelical Christians have focused their political activism on two main areas: opposition to abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights, but that’s not the whole story, said Texas Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat who is working with evangelicals on Harris’ behalf.

“If you open your Bible, there are over 2,000 verses about economic justice, but nothing about abortion or gay rights,” said the politician and seminarian at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Talarico acknowledges that the evangelical message supporting Harris — focused on poverty, health care and the environment — likely won’t resonate with most conservative Christians, but he argues that their appeal doesn’t have to be.

“I don’t need everyone’s support,” he said, “I just need enough of them to win this election.”