President Trump claimed during his Monday night rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that the Democratic Party does not put much stock in religion and that their attempts to appeal to religious voters are ineffective.
“The other side, I don’t think they’re big believers. They’re not big believers in religion, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “You listen to some of them. They’re trying. They’re trying to put out little statements. They’re not working too well.”
The president did not specify to which statements he was referencing.
Trump had earlier in the rally praised Rev. Franklin Graham and the disaster relief provided by his charity, Samaritan’s Purse, which is headquartered in the mountains of Boone, North Carolina.
Democrats have been shedding religious voters in recent election cycles, especially among evangelicals. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to secure a mere 16% of the evangelical vote in the 2016 presidential election, down from 2012, when President Barack Obama earned 20%.
Liberal pastors expressed optimism to the Washington Examiner recently that the Democrats can rebound with religious voters, noting an increased willingness among 2020 candidates to talk about faith. Several of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have made faith a prominent part of their platform, such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg stoked backlash from some evangelicals, including his own brother-in-law, when he claimed on Friday that the Bible teaches life does not begin until a baby first breathes outside the womb. Buttigieg’s brother-in-law, evangelical pastor Rhyan Glezman, told the Washington Examiner that “when I look at every single one of [the 2020 presidential candidates], their policies, their beliefs, it’s very anti-American. It’s very anti-life. It’s very anti-God.”
