This week, millions of Americans went to the polls to elect members of Congress in the midterm elections. What might those results mean for US Christian voters, and will they have any impact here in the UK?
We can think of the mid-terms as a bit like our local council elections. As well as electing local candidates, people are passing a verdict on the President. And it wasn’t a happy night for the Republicans.
Donald Trump’s unpopularity was reflected in an absolute landslide win for the Democrats. They took both houses of Congress, and won states like Texas and Kansas which had been Republican for decades.
Americans are unhappy with Trump’s war on Iran, which has greatly pushed up the cost of fuel and food. And many are increasingly uncomfortable about his erratic behaviour, his amorality and his focus on increasing his own personal wealth.
The majority of white Evangelicals are still in Trump’s corner, but a shift does seem to be occurring. The Pew Research Centre indicates that Trump’s approval among his white Evangelical base has dropped a whopping 20 points since his re-election (down to 58% from 78%).
In the UK we often wonder how so many Christians continue to support Trump despite his unchristian attitudes and behaviour. This is partly due to the stark two-party nature of the US system: a protest vote generally only has one place to go. But many socially conservative Christians cannot bring themselves to vote Democrat under any circumstances.
New York Times columnist David French has also expressed concern that the high stakes ‘good versus evil’ nature of the American political debate means many Christians are scared of expressing an anti-Trump view, for fear of being ostracised by their church community. This, he says, leads to a false sense of unanimity, and empowers the more militant to claim they are speaking on behalf of everyone in their congregations.
As someone who always encourages Christians to vote, I nevertheless appreciate that many Christians feel uneasy when it comes to choosing a candidate to support. But I would stress the importance of voting on the record and character of the local candidates in front of you - those who will represent your own community - and not just focusing on the big beasts on the national stage.
How much has this has been a factor in these elections? It’s interesting that the major Senate upsets in Texas and Kansas were won by James Talarico and Adam Hamilton, Democrats who both emphasised their Christian credentials.
The election results surely indicate a clear opportunity for the Democrats to seek to persuade Christians to back their party, and for Christians on both sides to model a more healthy and gracious political debate.
The Democrats also need to remember that their success in the midterms is largely due to the President’s unpopularity rather than their own appeal. To regain the White House in 2028, they will need to set out a positive vision and to properly understand their own failings that helped to fuel Trump’s rise in the first place.
We can now expect a lot of domestic infighting between the President and Congress as the Democrats try and make trouble for Trump. They will doubtless open lots of investigations into his behaviour as they did in 2018, and may even seek to impeach him again.
But Trump can use executive orders to bypass Congress, and can exercise his Presidential veto to halt legislation he doesn’t like. It is likely that he will avoid dealing too much with Congress and instead double down on foreign policy.
This is one reason why we in the UK - along with the rest of the world - have been following the midterms with such interest and trepidation. America’s power and influence on the world stage, combined with Trump’s unpredictability and volatility, is a worrying mix. Add this defeat to the fact that he will be trying to secure his long-term legacy in his last two years as President, and it is very hard to know what he will do next.
For those of us watching in the UK, it is a stark reminder that we have no control whatsoever over what happens in Congress or the Whitehouse. We are watching events unfold across the Atlantic without the ability to influence them, but knowing they will influence us.
This means it’s more important than ever for us to realise that politics is not ultimate. God's story is bigger and better than electoral cycles, parties and personalities.
We should continue to engage with politics, to seek to love our neighbour through serving our communities. But our lack of agency in these elections and the actions of the US President reminds us, in the words of Psalm 146, not to “put (our) trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save”.
Instead let’s hold onto the fact that our “hope is in the Lord (our) God”, who “is the Maker of heaven and earth”, who has the ultimate victory and “remains faithful forever”.
