The Republican Party has built a strong base in the South by focusing on the white evangelical Protestant vote, but honing in on this group might not be the answer to winning Wisconsin.
Instead, Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-religiously affiliated voters may just hold the key to the state’s electoral votes, Brian Kaylor, president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way, a Christian media company, told The Daily Cardinal.
As former President Donald Trump continues to embrace Christian nationalism in his bid for the Oval Office, support for him remains strong among evangelicals and other conservative Christian groups.
Vice President Kamala Harris has instead focused on trying to secure votes from a border range of religious groups, particularly within non-evangelical Protestants and Catholics, who make up the “center of the political spectrum.”
Which denominations could decide how Wisconsin swings?
Wisconsin is uniquely positioned among other states due to large populations of Catholics, mainline Protestants and non-religiously affiliated voters. Only 52% of America’s population falls into one of the three categories cited by Kaylor, yet in Wisconsin, 72% identify as one of the three groups, according to a 2024 PRRI study.
Kaylor said these three groups could “decide the election” due to the “purple” nature of the communities they are in.
“They're not in their own little siloed, partisan red church or blue church, red community or blue community,” Kaylor said. “It's these purple communities and seeing which direction do they swing.”
Rev. Michael Burch, executive director of The Crossing, an inclusive, multi-faith and nonprofit organization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Cardinal he’s seen this nonpartisan pattern play out within the three major Protestant churches that fund their group.
“If you're a member at [The United Church of Christ], you're voting left, almost right across that entire denomination. United Methodists are split, especially in Wisconsin, they're more along that 50/50 split. But American Baptists in Wisconsin are going to vote Republican on the whole,” Burch said.
Within the mainline Protestant denominations, the largest in Wisconsin is Evangelical Lutherans, the same denomination as vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — a fact Kaylor thinks coupled with his Midwestern appeal, could help Harris win Wisconsin.
Kaylor and Susan Ridgely, director of religious studies at UW-Madison, highlighted a stark contrast between the use of religious scripture during the Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention.
Ridgely said the verses reflected both parties’ “differing views for what America should be,” noting that Democrats used more “inclusive” verses which aligned with their views on the U.S. being “a beloved community.” Republicans, on the other hand, gravitated toward what Kaylor called “spiritual warfare types of verses,” reflecting on the GOP’s view on conformity, Ridgely said.
Ridgely thought the differences between each parties’ scripture could lead to a larger attraction of Mainline Protestants and Christans to Democrats, who Ridgley said were more “privately religious.”
She said Democrats’ “broad, pluralistic vision of America” which contains “enough [religious] undertones that if you were looking for it, or if you needed it, it will be there,” has a broad appeal to different demographics.
Kaylor said these kinds of religious appeals can help remove the “psychological barrier” to voting against what most in your own religious community may support.
“If you’re deep in the church community, it’s where you find ultimate meaning. If you find yourself suddenly on the opposite side of something really significant, it can be a re-evaluation or even a deconstruction of that whole process,” Kaylor said. “If they're going against their faith, if they’re going against their church, that could be a powerful last-moment check to vote in a way they perhaps weren't leaning ideologically.”
The Republican Party, white evangelical Protestants and anti-abortion rhetoric
The white evangelical Protestant voting bloc has historically been a key voting demographic for the Republican Party dating back to the 1980s when former President Ronald Reagan embraced the evangelical movement.
Despite best efforts by groups like Faith Forward, a religious political advocacy group, to mobilize the white evangelical Protestant vote for Harris in key battleground states like Wisconsin, evangelical Protestants tend to rally behind Republican policies that share many conservative beliefs surrounding abortion and attitudes about family and gender.
Roughly 11% of Wisconsinites identified as evangelical Protestants, according to a 2024 PRRI study. This accounts for over 500,000 of the 4.6 million Wisconsinites over the age of 18, according to 2020 census data.
Of Wisconsin’s evangelical Protestants, 64% identify as Republican or Republican-leaning, while only 22% identify as Democratic or Democratic-leaning, according to a 2014 Pew Research survey.
According to a Pew Research survey conducted in late August and early September, 82% of white evangelical Protestants would vote for Trump if the election were held that day.
Kristin Du Mez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, called white evangelicals “almost outliers” within the wider voting sphere at a virtual Faith Forward press briefing Sept. 12.
Often, evangelical voters are “emphasized too much in our coverage,” leading to a journalistic and political focus on a group that “doesn't even matter much,” due to their staunch support of Trump, Du Mez said. Ridgely agreed with this assessment, calling evangelicalism a “religio-political identity” for some practitioners.
Du Mez attributed the “political mobilization” of the anti-abortion movement as the reason for the existence of a “very strong correlation between pro-life sentiments and Christian nationalism.”
Citing a recent PRRI study, Du Mez said 71% of all white evangelicals think abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. The same PRRI study found that 61-62% of Hispanic and white Catholics and 68% of white mainline Protestants believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
Abortion rights continue to be a rallying issue for the Harris-Walz campaign, while Republicans have gone to great lengths to avoid the issue on the campaign trail.
In Wisconsin specifically, abortion rights have been a critical issue for voters in recent years. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending a constitutionally protected right to abortion access. The ruling caused an 1849 Wisconsin law to go back into effect, banning all abortions in the state with no exception for rape or incest.
Abortion services later resumed in the state in September 2023 following a Dane County Circuit Court judge’s ruling that the 1849 law applies only to feticide, not consensual abortions.
Roughly 64% of Wisconsinites say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, reflecting the importance of the issue in this crucial battleground state.
Anna Kleiber is the state news editor for The Daily Cardinal. She previously served as the arts editor. Anna has written in-depth on elections, legislative maps and campus news. She has interned with WisPolitics and Madison Magazine. Follow her on Twitter at @annakleiber03.
