South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg may have an uphill battle drawing some Iowa voters to his blend of progressive politics and religion.
Buttigieg “comes off as a great guy,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of conservative Iowa Christian organization The Family Leader, but “his policies don’t align with where we believe Scripture is and where we believe the faith is at and what’s in the best interest of our country.”
“If the policies don’t line up, I think Iowans — and more than that Americans who are evangelical — are wise enough to see through that,” Vander Plaats told the Washington Examiner.
Earlier this month, Buttigieg became the first Democratic candidate to hire a national faith outreach director. In June, he appeared at a forum hosted by progressive Christian leader William Barber and last week attended a black church forum in Atlanta. But in April, he turned down an invitation to a July summit hosted by The Family Leader. Vander Plaats said he invited Buttigieg and other candidates to “have an open dialogue and conversation about their faith.”
“All of them were casting a vision of unity for the country, and I thought if you’re going to cast a vision of unity, how about coming to a stage that would be an unlikely stage for you,” Vander Plaats said.
Buttigieg’s support for abortion access, for example, could limit any goodwill his willingness to talk about God will earn him among evangelical voters.
“I think that the issues, primarily of abortion, somewhat of immigration … in evangelicalism, that is just a real passionate issue. As long as the Democratic Party continues to run to the extreme on that issue, I don’t think talking about God a little bit is going to make a whole lot of difference,” Dave Miller, senior pastor of Southern Hills Baptist Church in Sioux City, Iowa, told the Washington Examiner.
The “primary obstacle” to reaching white evangelicals is a candidate “who is not even willing to hear them and respond to their concerns, and is instead seeking to use white evangelicals as a foil to rile up the base,” Faith 2020 podcast host Michael Wear told the Washington Examiner. “And frankly, we’ve seen Mayor Pete do both so far in this campaign.”
“He’s seemed to be very open, he’s seemed to want to connect his values with the values of white evangelicals and other Christians. And then we’ve also seen him sort of use white evangelicals as a foil for his campaign. And that’s obviously not going to be a successful strategy,” said Wear, who directed faith outreach during President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012.
Evangelical Christians make up about a quarter of the United States’ population and close to 30% in Iowa, the first caucus state. Winning the support of even a sizable minority of white evangelicals in a general election could swing the outcome.
Wear called the mayor’s criticisms of Vice President Mike Pence’s evangelical faith not “necessarily helpful.”
Buttigieg took aim at Pence during the LGBTQ Victory Fund’s annual brunch in April.
“Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” said Buttigieg. “That’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. If you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
Wear also highlighted Buttigieg’s attack on “so-called conservative Christian senators” in the second Democratic debate, as the mayor said they “are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage when Scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their Maker.”
“I think that Republicans for a long time have suggested if you don’t support Republican policies, you’re less of a Christian and I just don’t think that’s a helpful approach for Mayor Pete or any Democrat or any politician to take,” said Wear.
Buttigieg’s new faith outreach director, Rev. Shawna Foster, has suggested she will look to engage with Iowa’s other large Christian community, mainline Protestants, who tend to be more liberal than their evangelical counterparts. A recent survey found Buttigieg’s appeal to religious voters may be paying off among mainline Protestants. Despite consistently averaging around 5% in national primary polls and trailing four other candidates, his support among mainline Protestants outpaced Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris. He matched Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 15% support, trailing only former Vice President Joe Biden.
“In some ways, what I hear is people say he’s reclaiming the faith and values that they’ve always accepted for themselves, and he’s reclaiming that for their policy or political interests,” Matt Russell, executive director of Iowa Interfaith Power & Light, an organization mobilizing religious leaders to fight climate change, told the Washington Examiner.
The campaign declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.
The mayor’s perceived authenticity will likely help determine the success of his faith outreach efforts.
“For Iowa voters, the sense of genuineness or sincerity from a candidate is critically important. We have the great privilege of meeting candidates with a handshake … It enables us also to gauge where the candidate is on the issues, but also their sincerity, their genuineness, their personality, and that’s a factor for Iowans,” Connie Ryan, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, an organization that promotes what it calls a “healthy” separation of church and state, told the Washington Examiner.
Rev. David Sickelka, senior pastor at Urbandale United Church of Christ in Urbandale, Iowa, said Buttigieg appears sincere.
“In my estimation, I think Buttigieg’s sincerity and his faith come across as really authentic and really a part of who he is, and I think people will respect that,” Sickelka told the Washington Examiner.
