Page is an American journalist, syndicated columnist, and senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.
Black voters have traditionally been pivotal to the fortunes of the Democratic Party, but some recent polls have suggested that they are proving less bankable for President Joe Biden than in the past. Whether or not as many as 20% of Black voters have in fact deserted the Democrats, as some recent polls suggest, is a contested matter. But it’s probably fair to say that Democrats currently are in more of a defensive than a growth mode with that portion of the electorate.
But what of Donald Trump and evangelicals? Does the same apply?
Historically, what we used to know as the evangelical bloc has meant a lot to the GOP base, much like Black voters have been crucial to the Democratic base. But both of these truisms are looking less reliable this time around as we see churchgoing declining in America and more factions developing within a previously homogenous bloc. Abortion politics comes into play here too and Trump’s stance on the issue not only has been near impossible to pin down but also has appeared to many evangelicals to be a matter of political expediency, not sincere moral conviction.
That said, it’s also true that the idea of a single evangelical point of view is looking increasingly dated as cultural and political earthquakes have erupted inside the church just as they have within our current presidential race. Clearly, some of former President Trump’s statements in recent months have driven a wedge between his campaign and religious voters, particularly those all-important evangelicals,In April, for example, he said he believed abortion should be regulated at the state level, with very little interference from the federal government. His statements were met with strong backlash from the very same anti-abortion rights groups that had celebrated his appointment of the Supreme Court justices who helped write the landmark decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling.
Trump’s head-spinning logic was impossible to follow. He took credit for the decision the three Trump-appointed justices helped make, but he then appeared to turn against its consequences, saying the states should make their own decisions about regulating abortion.
Trump’s new position infuriated the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization, which favors a federal ban on abortion nationwide and condemned Trump’s comments as a “morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate.” That should hardly have come as a surprise.
The issue now for Republicans, and Trump, is whether it will matter. And there’s a growing sense within Trump’s presidential campaign that he actually can afford some erosion of the traditional Republican support coming from evangelicals. That’s because Trump’s most impactful base of support in the 2016 primary contest came from a rising group in the GOP whose impact has been largely unnoticed: Republicans who are thoroughly disinterested in churches, synagogues or other places of worship.
Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and the research director for Faith Counts, has authored several books on church attendance including “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.”
“Nones” is Burge’s label for the “non-affiliated” or “none-churchgoers.” No religious affiliation has morphed from 5% of the population to nearly 30% over the past half-century, according to Pew Research Center.
“The data show that the former president’s support among this low-attender group is growing, which means that in the short term, even if Trump does alienate some religiously devout members of the religious right,” Burge wrote in Politico last fall, “he remains well positioned to secure the nomination.”
That came true, and, from there, the evidence of continuance is compelling. Take this statistic from Burge’s article: “In 2016, 39% of all Republican voters attended church less than once a year. In comparison, just 36% said that they attended religious services at least once a week.”
It’s reasonable to assume that in 2024, the number of churchgoing Republicans has declined even further. Significantly so. And thus, they matter less to the ever-expedient Trump’s campaign for president.
Dozens of books and other media have been produced to try to explain the unexpected bond between white evangelical Christians and Trump’s populist MAGA movement. Or so everyone has been thinking.
But it might well be that they are missing the bigger point.
There simply are fewer Republican evangelicals these days, and the MAGA crowd now is better able to get along just fine without them.
First posted 4/19, 2024. (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.