Since Donald Trump secured 80-81% of the white evangelical vote in 2016, strategists have known higher than to discount religion as a think about national elections. But while the 2020 faith vote largely fell along similar lines, it isn’t yet clear how the recent flip on the Democratic ticket will impact younger generations’ political leanings.
A 2022 survey of young people by nonprofit Neighborly Faith found that evangelical youth were much more likely to trust Donald Trump (40%) than Joe Biden (16%). Still, some surveys — including a 2021 poll from Barna Group and other scholars — indicate that self-identified evangelicals between the ages of 18 to 29 share a big selection of beliefs and policy preferences and are more likely than older evangelicals to support issues like fighting climate change. But despite the apparent diversification of younger evangelicals’ views, researcher Ryan Burge argues in his 2022 book that it will be a mistake to assume they’re more moderate than earlier generations.
To higher understand their thoughts on the 2024 election, Religion News Service spoke to several evangelicals of their 20s and early 30s about how their faith shapes their political values and potential pick for president. While they prioritized a variety of policy issues — from immigration to abortion and health care to climate change — these young adults routinely called for candidates to display authenticity, integrity and dialogue and repeatedly insisted that young evangelicals, as a gaggle, are usually not a monolith.
Kyle Chu, 22, Wellsville, Pennsylvania
Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently living in Eastern Pennsylvania, recent college graduate Kyle Chu is studying for the LSAT, does jiu-jitsu — and just isn’t thrilled by either presidential candidate. “A number of politicians’ speech is extreme, radical,” he said. “Whereas these problems are very complex.” For most of his life, Chu attended a nondenominational church that was culturally conservative but didn’t discuss politics head-on. While at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Chu realized political issues aren’t at all times straightforward and commenced to view living sustainably in hopes of delaying climate change as a matter of religion.
“It’s hypocritical that we call ourselves a majority Christian society, but we do not seem concerned about how our individual actions aggregated together have an immense effect on the world and other communities,” he said.
This spring, Chu worked on a campaign for House of Representatives hopeful Janelle Stelson, a Democrat. But his experience on the opposite side of the aisle left him with the sense that too many politicians prioritize attacking their opponents over proposing actionable solutions. He wants a candidate with high integrity, who acknowledges the nuance of political issues and is willing to dialogue with people of all views. Right now, he’d vote for Harris if forced to decide on, but he doesn’t think either candidate matches the bill.
Isaac Willour, 22, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
A onetime political science major at Grove City College in Pennsylvania who now works in political finance, nowadays Isaac Willour sees his politics as center-right. Willour is the son of a pastor within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and his faith informs his appreciation for political takes that feature nuance and reason. “I’m operating off a world view through which human life matters, through which individual liberty is definitely meaningful. It’s an extension of the Imago Dei,” he said.
Willour strongly believes in protecting the rights of the unborn by opposing abortion, thinks a healthy economy is important and is worried in regards to the “general sympathy with gender ideology” he observes within the broader culture. It’s partially for these reasons that, when asked to decide on, Willour said he’d vote for the Trump-Vance ticket, despite his lack of enthusiasm for what he sees because the Trump campaign’s indulgence of populism. “Kamala Harris, I completely disagree together with her vision for the country,” he said, pointing to her track record on policing and racism. “I’m voting for which party could create the environment that’s most conducive to true conservatism.”
Willour also noted that inside evangelicalism — and inside conservatism — there is a “radical spectrum” of ideas often ignored by simplistic portrayals of evangelicals, who, he said, by and huge are “normal people” who attend church often and are highly involved in charity and volunteerism.
Mary Parker, 22, Birmingham, Alabama
Mary Parker spent her childhood in a conservative Methodist family surrounded by peanut and cotton farms in a small Alabama town. Today, she’s an Alabama delegate for the upcoming Democratic National Convention, where, “unless something drastic happens,” she’ll be voting for Harris and Walz, she said.
She began developing political sensibilities at an early age, thanks largely to the web, where she was exposed to ideas about feminism and marriage equality. These days, she aligns with the Democratic Party’s stance on most major issues but cares especially in regards to the party’s stance on mass incarceration, immigration and the war in Gaza. “I see Jesus very much within the immigrants that are usually not allowed to return back to this country and are separated from their families. I see Jesus within the rehabilitated prisoner that is stuck serving a life with no parole sentence for a nonviolent offense, I see Jesus within the person on death row, and I see Jesus in, you recognize, the Palestinian children who are actually homeless and orphans,” she said.
Parker can also be concerned in regards to the politicization of Christianity. She thinks it’s crucial that Christians avoid framing political differences as theological disagreements of salvific significance.
A veteran and a contract photographer, Jacob Pesci is a self-described “Bernie Bro” who says he’ll begrudgingly vote for Harris in November. A lifelong evangelical, he grew up in a conservative family within the Bethel Park suburb of Pittsburgh, made famous for the Trump assassination attempt.
After joining the Navy shortly after highschool and spending years as a hospital corpsman with the Marine Corps, Pesci’s political values shifted as his high views of the U.S. military shattered. Rather than being the “good guys” committed to caring for humanity, in his experience, the military glorified violence, he said. These days, he’s enthusiastic about a politician who he believes resembles Christ’s character. “That’s what concerns me probably the most. How do you care about people?” asked Pesci. “Bernie desired to see the least of those cared for, where I see most political candidates not caring for the least of those. They’re caring for the party and power and political correctness reasonably than, ‘let’s make change, and ensure that everyone has a right to a dignified life.'”
Jacklyn Mae, 27, Cincinnati, Ohio
To Jacklyn Mae, abortion is a human rights violation, a visceral life-or-death issue, and something her faith, reasoning and conscience won’t allow her to support. “If you are not a pro-life candidate then I’m sorry, but you aren’t getting my vote,” she said. If each presidential candidates had equal anti-abortion policies, she’d evaluate her alternative based on their support for a smaller government, Second Amendment rights and “traditional family values,” she said.
Her own values have been shaped by her upbringing in Northwest Indiana. She was raised within the Christian Reformed Church — a historically Dutch Reformed denomination — before her family joined the United Reformed Church, a more conservative denominational offshoot, when she was in middle school. She currently attends a congregation within the Presbyterian Church in America.
Her mother, a NICU nurse, was “very involved within the pro-life movement once I was growing up,” Jacklyn said, and he or she continues to be involved with the local Right to Life group within the town where she was raised. Still, while her values are leading her to vote for Donald Trump, she doesn’t see either candidate as ideal. “Would I be friends with Trump in real life? Probably not,” she said. But, she added, among the most “impactful pro-life actions” happened due to his administration.
“At the top of the day, the Lord is on the throne. That’s the mentality I’ve needed to have,” she said. “You’re just type of hoping and praying that the candidate that is elected will, in the long run, proceed to make more good selections than ones that can impact people negatively.” (Jacklyn asked to have her last name off the record because of the character of her job.)
Grace Pixton, 21, Waco, Texas
Grace Pixton knows she won’t vote for Donald Trump because of what she sees as his lack of respect for ladies and other people groups, but that does not imply she’s sold on Harris, either. In general, she’s feeling overwhelmed by the political climate. “I believe I have not fully processed the whole lot, given the character of the summer, and having a candidate drop, and having things change, and having an almost presidential assassination,” she said. “It’s hard to say which way I’m leaning.”
As a toddler in Portland, Oregon, politics were a component of the atmosphere, nevertheless it wasn’t until her senior 12 months of highschool, when her city shut down, and later as an intern on the Christian think tank The Center for Public Justice that she began to intentionally sort out how her faith informed her politics.
She’s still undecided about where she lands on issues like immigration and abortion, though she thinks the care with which candidates frame such issues is vital. She said a lot of her peers are frustrated by the strong “either/or” messaging they’re surrounded by. “There must be a greater middle ground, where we all know how one can care, love and are available to disagreement and recognize the worth of human life and look after people who find themselves different from us, without walking away and feeling like, if I do not vote under this political party, I am unable to be an excellent Christian,” she said.
© Religion News Service
