Turnout rates among White evangelicals — a key part of the GOP base — were significantly lower during the recent midterms than in 2024, and people in those areas voted much less Republican, according to a new analysis.
Pollsters and political scientists are still poring over exit polling and other data to understand turnout and other factors that led to a historic Democratic wave in the elections on Nov. 3.
Researchers at the American Communities Project looked at 15 states with U.S. Senate races that also have a lot of what ACP calls “evangelical hub counties.” Those are places with high concentrations of self-described evangelicals. This category is mostly White evangelicals, as evangelicals of color go into other ACP categories, such as “African American South.”
The “evangelical hub” counties were almost all in the Southeast, from Texas to Virginia. White evangelicals make up 52 percent of those counties compared with 13 percent of the country overall, according to the PRRI 2023 Census of American Religion.
The 343 counties’ vote was 66 percent of what it was in the 2024 presidential election, according to AP vote count data. The turnout for surrounding counties in those states, ACP found, was 78 percent of the 2024 election.
In other words, enthusiasm in those heavily White evangelical areas “was lower than enthusiasm in other locales,” Dante Chinni, founder of ACP, wrote to The Post in an email.
If those areas had voted at rates similar to their neighbors, he said, it would have produced hundreds of thousands more votes.
“Those changes may have led to the Republican loss of the Mississippi U.S. Senate seat, surprising big Democratic margins in a few Senate races, and several Democratic pickups of GOP-held U.S. House seats around the country,” he wrote.
These areas were still overwhelmingly Republican — just less so.
Those counties in 2024 went for Donald Trump by a margin of 62 points. In the midterms, they went for GOP Senate candidates by a margin of 45 points.
The analysis by ACP, a social science research lab at Michigan State University, is more granular than some exit polling that showed mixed signals about White evangelical turnout weakening.
A nationwide voter poll by NORC, based at the University of Chicago, assessed that White evangelical Christians made up 20 percent of midterm voters, which is basically where it’s been since 2018, according to NORC. Exit polls done by national TV networks and AP said such turnout was down this year — 17 percent, compared with 23 percent in 2024.
Paul Binford and his wife, evangelicals of Lancaster, Kentucky, normally vote — and vote GOP — in every election, but said this year they were torn because they wanted to send a message that they don’t like Trump’s policies. Trump is busy “enriching himself” and running an unpopular war, said the retired aerospace manufacturing quality manager.
They see Democrats as too loose on border security and fear they would not protect Christians’ religious freedoms if they came under attack. Ultimately they decided she wouldn’t vote and he would, but the lack of enthusiasm for them is new, he said.
“It’s been in the last 10 years. Since Trump came in. Since he already had a lot money we thought he might not sell us out, but he was [the] worst offender of all,” said Binford, 69.
He’s glad Republicans won in many location elections, he said, but also that Democrats won majorities in Congress so they can balance out Trump.
Evangelicals he knows still see the GOP as “more aligned” with and welcoming to Christians, he said.
“I know there is massive corruption and evil in the Republican Party but at the same time I think they better support religious freedom,” he said.
Keenan Young, 24, said he felt “a little bit” less enthusiastic about voting this year. While he voted for federal races, he did not vote in the governor’s race because he didn’t like any of the candidates.
Too many of the GOP candidates “were just like: ‘I’m going to do what the president is doing.’ I want to know your policies and if you’re giving me nothing of substance, I’m not going to vote for you.”
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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