(RNS) — Since Donald Trump secured 80-81% of the white evangelical vote in 2016, strategists have known better than to discount religion as a factor in national elections. But while the 2020 faith vote largely fell along similar lines, it’s not 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 wide range 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 would be a mistake to assume they are more moderate than earlier generations.
To better understand their thoughts on the 2024 election, Religion News Service spoke to several evangelicals in their 20s and early 30s about how their faith shapes their political values and potential pick for president. While they prioritized a range 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 group, are 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 is not thrilled by either presidential candidate. “A lot 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 always straightforward and began to view living sustainably in hopes of delaying climate change as a matter of faith.
“It’s hypocritical that we call ourselves a majority Christian society, but we don’t 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 other 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 choose, but he doesn’t think either candidate fits the bill.
Isaac Willour, 22, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Isaac Willour. (Courtesy photo)
A onetime political science major at Grove City College in Pennsylvania who now works in political finance, these days Isaac Willour sees his politics as center-right. Willour is the son of a pastor in 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 in which human life matters, in which individual liberty is actually 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 vital and is concerned about the “general sympathy with gender ideology” he observes in the broader culture. It’s in part for these reasons that, when asked to choose, Willour said he’d vote for the Trump-Vance ticket, despite his lack of enthusiasm for what he sees as the Trump campaign’s indulgence of populism. “Kamala Harris, I completely disagree 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 is most conducive to true conservatism.”
Willour also noted that within evangelicalism — and within conservatism — there’s a “radical spectrum” of ideas often ignored by simplistic portrayals of evangelicals, who, he said, by and large are “normal people” who attend church regularly and are highly involved in charity and volunteerism.
Mary Parker, 22, Birmingham, Alabama
Mary Parker. (Courtesy photo)
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 in large part to the internet, 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 about the party’s stance on mass incarceration, immigration and the war in Gaza. “I see Jesus very much in the immigrants that are not allowed to come back to this country and are separated from their families. I see Jesus in the rehabilitated prisoner that’s stuck serving a life without a parole sentence for a nonviolent offense, I see Jesus in the person on death row, and I see Jesus in, you know, the Palestinian children who are now homeless and orphans,” she said.
Parker is also concerned about the politicization of Christianity. She thinks it’s crucial that Christians avoid framing political differences as theological disagreements of salvific significance.
