2026-10-13T09:00:45.386Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
保守派领袖们发出警告，称在中期选举前的最后几周，需要采取更多行动来教育和动员白人福音派选民——这是总统所在政党联盟中的关键投票群体。共和党人担心，如果这些选民待在家里，可能会让民主党在全国多个关键选区获胜，进而危及国会控制权。
“我没听说目前有任何政党机器在动员福音派选民，”得克萨斯州一名保守派福音派牧师匿名接受CNN采访时表示，他希望匿名以便自由谈论共和党在选举中面临的风险。“也许他们默认福音派选民会前来投票，但这是一个危险的假设。”
几乎没有证据表明全国共和党通过其竞选委员会开展了专门针对福音派选民的动员活动。相反，基层动员工作主要由各个教堂和信仰与自由联盟等团体负责。该联盟近日宣布了一项“催票行动”，旨在动员“流失选民”——即在总统选举中投票但并不总是参加中期选举的福音派信徒。
与此同时，民主党也在努力争取白人基督教选民，辩称其政党和政策与基于信仰的价值观相符，并招募了包括牧师在内的候选人，这些候选人的宗教信仰是其身份认同的关键组成部分。
动员白人福音派选民对于共和党在南部多个关键选区的竞选成功至关重要，从得克萨斯州、佐治亚州、堪萨斯州，再到南卡罗来纳州等地——已故参议员林赛·格雷厄姆的姐姐达琳·格雷厄姆正与民主党人安妮·安德鲁斯展开角逐，后者的竞选活动比共和党预期的更具竞争力。
根据公共宗教研究所的数据，在2016年、2020年和2024年的全国大选中，约八成白人福音派选民将选票投给了前总统唐纳德·特朗普。尽管这一群体仅占美国总人口的13%，但他们的投票率极高，通常在任何一次选举中都占选民总数的20%左右。
“福音派选民是特朗普最稳固的票仓。他38%的选民都是白人福音派信徒。[共和党人]不可能获胜——无论你身处美国哪个地方——没有福音派选民的支持，”圣路易斯华盛顿大学约翰·C·丹佛斯宗教与政治中心教授瑞安·伯奇说道。
但在当前汽油和食品价格高企、总统支持率低迷、共和党选民热情不高的背景下，2026年的选举可能是一场关键考验：白人福音派信徒是否仍对共和党有足够信心，在选举日全员出动投票。
“福音派信徒和其他人一样，需要给汽车加油，需要购买食品杂货，”北卡罗来纳州众议员、前牧师马克·哈里斯说道。“但我确实认为福音派选民明白当前的局势。”
最近几周，包括美南浸信会主席威利·赖斯在内的全国性宗教领袖呼吁牧师们在讲道坛上“挺身而出”，向教区居民解释中期选举面临的风险。多名牧师告诉CNN，他们已经开展了自己的动员工作，确保教区居民和其他牧师参与投票。
赖斯在接受CNN采访时表示，经济对福音派信徒来说是一项挑战，但“我们不应过多考虑眼前的压力，而应关注根本的基础性问题：什么是对与错，什么是真与假。这是一个很高的要求，但我们应该提出这样的要求。”
查德·康奈利曾担任共和党全国委员会全国信仰参与事务主管，过去两个月来，他在20多个州与牧师会面，教导他们如何在讲道坛上讨论这些议题。
在举办了80多场牧师会议后，他表示仍有更多工作要做。
“福音派选民的投票率确实是决定胜负的关键，”康奈利说道。“我认为共和党在这个领域从未做足功课。”
信仰与自由联盟创始人兼主席拉尔夫·里德承认他对此感到担忧，但坚称其组织正在努力确保那些错过往届中期选举的福音派选民前往投票站投票。
“听着，我的工作就是担忧，这是我的职业本能和专业义务，”他说道。“我们正逆风前行，这一点我们都清楚，也都了解在任总统所在政党的中期选举历史。但我相信我们会完成自己的工作，我们会争取到这部分选票，而且投票人数会比中期选举的平均水平更高。”
里德承认经济是当前的不利因素之一。
“人不能单靠食物活着，但人活着需要食物，”他说道。“所以，当你应对通胀问题时，就像眼下我们认为油价暂时高于我们的预期，也高于总统的预期——这会影响人们的日常生活，当然也会产生影响。”
但部分动员工作也完全交由个别牧师负责。
“我们教堂的大厅里设有选民登记台，”休斯顿荣耀之路教堂副牧师、“我的上帝投票”组织执行主任詹姆斯·邦特洛克说道。
动员福音派选民的问题在得克萨斯州尤为重要。
在最近的一次周日布道中，牧师史蒂夫·里格尔手持情况说明书站在教堂前方，尖锐地警告教区居民关于民主党参议院候选人詹姆斯·塔拉利科对基督教的看法。
“这不是政治问题，不是民主党或共和党问题，这是真理问题，”他警告道。“狡猾的骗子不会站出来宣布‘我来这里是要带领你们背离上帝’。他会说‘让我帮你们理解上帝真正的旨意’。”
选民们将在塔拉利科和肯·帕克斯顿之间做出选择。塔拉利科是一名神学院学生，将信仰作为竞选活动的核心内容，但福音派领袖警告称，他的一些言论与《圣经》教义相悖。帕克斯顿是得克萨斯州总检察长，其妻子以“符合《圣经》的理由”与其离婚，他还曾在得克萨斯州议会中遭到共和党同僚的弹劾。
拉雷多牧师豪尔赫·托瓦尔告诉CNN，他正在直接与教区居民就此次选举展开对话。
“作为精神领袖，我们努力向他们提供信息，展示事实，”他说道。
当被问及如何建议那些可能持保守立场但对投票给帕克斯顿心存顾虑的教区居民时，托瓦尔告诉CNN：“这就像特朗普总统一样。他和帕克斯顿总检察长都有过往，但在政治方面，人们需要关注他们的政策和纲领。”
另一位匿名接受CNN采访的得克萨斯州牧师表示，他们在如何与教区居民谈论参议院竞选问题上拿捏着分寸。
“我人生的使命不是为肯·帕克斯顿或其他任何人拉票，”他说道。
里德承认，如果共和党候选人是现任参议员约翰·康林，得克萨斯州的席位可能会更容易保住。帕克斯顿在获得总统背书后不久的党内初选中击败了康林。
“所有人都知道，如果提名肯·帕克斯顿，这场竞选将处于势均力敌的状态，将会非常激烈，”里德说道。“所有人都清楚这一点……我认为即使康林赢得了初选，这场竞选仍会有竞争力。但会像现在这样势均力敌吗？可能不会。”
近几个月来，民主党采取了更积极的行动，试图夺回白人基督教选民的支持。他们利用物价上涨和社会正义信息，开始辩称共和党并非唯一与基督教价值观相符的政党。
民主党推出了一批候选人，比如得克萨斯州的塔拉利科、堪萨斯州的美卫理公会巨型教堂牧师亚当·汉密尔顿，以及爱荷华州国会选区的牧师萨拉·特龙·加里奥特和林赛·詹姆斯。他们希望在基督教选民能够左右选举结果的州，缩小所谓的“信仰差距”。
民主党认为，他们可以通过扩大讨论范围来争取基督教选民，不再局限于堕胎或LGBTQ权利等议题——在这些议题上，他们在白人福音派选民中一直处于劣势。相反，民主党将信息重点放在“爱人如己”上，并将其作为基督教核心教义，以此支撑他们在限制移民执法和反对削减医疗保健方面的立场。
但保守派福音派领袖们尚未放弃这一传统上属于他们的制胜议题。
“我认为左翼的言论比保守派政党的行动更能动员民众，”康奈利说道。“他们说‘我和你们是一类人’，可能做得有些过头了。”
里德补充道：“我对此一点都不担心。”
在竞选活动中，共和党攻击民主党神职人员候选人是“名义上的牧师”。帕克斯顿经常提及塔拉利科过去关于信仰的言论，包括他曾说过“上帝是非二元的”以及耶稣是“激进女权主义者”，称这些言论对许多保守派教堂信徒来说过于极端。
塔拉利科今年早些时候在福克斯新闻上回应了“非二元”言论，称：“我当时是在刻意提出挑衅性观点，我明白这一点。我当时想说的是，你不能用人类的范畴来定义上帝，这在神学上并不具有争议性。”
在堪萨斯州，共和党参议员罗杰·马歇尔攻击了巨型教堂牧师汉密尔顿的工作，并在一则广告中指责他“利用信仰来充实自己的钱包”。
汉密尔顿竞选团队的发言人泰森·布罗迪驳斥了这些攻击，在一份声明中表示：“亚当为建立一个由2.4万名信徒组成的会众感到自豪，其中共和党人和民主党人各占一半。”
“罗杰·马歇尔多次撒谎，诋毁他所代表的州最大的会众，直接诽谤了过去曾投票给他的教区居民，这太可耻了。”
但全国各地的福音派领袖和共和党反对者都提出了类似的观点，称塔拉利科和汉密尔顿等候选人正在歪曲《圣经》教义以服务于自己的政治目的。
“我确实认为像詹姆斯·塔拉利科这样的人将《圣经》作为他们竞选的工具。问题在于，他们所读的《圣经》是大多数人从未听说过或见过的版本，”得克萨斯价值观组织主席乔纳森·萨恩兹说道。
帕克斯顿竞选团队的发言人麦迪逊·瑟西在给CNN的一份声明中也表达了类似观点。“得克萨斯州各地的共和党人都团结在总检察长身后，因为他们知道，我们的选择是在一位 proven fighter for their values（原文如此，应为：为他们的价值观而战的实干家）和一位嘲笑这些价值观的激进分子之间做出选择，”她说道。
公共宗教研究所主席兼创始人罗伯特·P·琼斯长期以来一直在研究白人基督教选民。他认为，如果福音派选民在选举日前往投票站，他们很可能会投票给共和党，但他同时也看到了共和党面临的另一个预警信号：白人新教主流教派选民。
“我没有看到福音派信徒大规模倒戈的迹象。如果他们在经历了所有丑闻、所有失言、所有政策、所有经济起伏之后，至今仍支持特朗普，那么我不清楚有什么事情能够动摇他们对他的支持，”琼斯告诉CNN。“但如果你看看威斯康星州或密歇根州等地，那里的福音派信徒仅占人口的13%，而新教主流教派信徒占18%，白人天主教徒占19%，那么你就会发现，这些群体可能会选择弃权，或者转而支持其他政党。”
琼斯表示，在过去三次总统选举中，约六成的白人新教主流教派选民将选票投给了特朗普。但这一群体被认为更容易被民主党争取过来，部分原因是其政治立场更加多元化。
“如果我是一名共和党战略师，审视当前的选举地图，我会担心其他白人基督教选民，”琼斯说道。“他们与总统的联系没有那么紧密。在我关注的几乎所有势均力敌的竞选中，即使共和党获得了他们通常从福音派信徒那里获得的支持，如果他们在白人新教主流教派和白人天主教徒的支持率上落后对手10个百分点，这可能会决定所有这些竞选的结果。”
Republicans need evangelicals to turn out in the midterms. Faith leaders are sounding the alarm they may not
2026-10-13T09:00:45.386Z / CNN
Conservative leaders are sounding the alarm that more needs to be done in the final weeks before the midterm elections to educate and mobilize White evangelicals, a critical voting bloc in the president’s coalition. Republicans fear if they stay home, that could hand victories to Democrats in key races across the country with control of Congress at stake.
“I am not aware of any party machine that is at work right now to turn out evangelical voters,” one conservative evangelical pastor in Texas told CNN on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the risks for Republicans in the election. “Maybe they are assuming they are going to show up, but that is a dangerous assumption.”
There’s little evidence national Republicans are doing much through their campaign committees to specifically target and mobilize the evangelical vote. Instead, grassroots mobilization is falling largely to individual churches and groups like the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which announced a get-out-the-vote operation aimed at turning out “drop-off voters” — evangelicals who vote in presidential elections but don’t always show up in the midterms.
At the same time, Democrats are mounting their own efforts to win over White Christian voters, making the argument that their party and priorities are aligned with faith-based values and recruiting candidates, including pastors, whose religion is a key part of their identity.
Turning out the White evangelical vote will be critical to Republicans’ success in key races across the South, from Texas to Georgia to Kansas and even places like South Carolina, where the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, is facing off against Democrat Annie Andrews, who has mounted a more competitive campaign than Republicans expected.
In 2016, 2020 and 2024, roughly 8 in 10 White evangelicals cast ballots for President Donald Trump nationally. While they make up only 13% of the country’s population, they vote in such large numbers that they often account for roughly 20% of the electorate in any given election, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
“The evangelical vote is Trump’s strongest coalition. Thirty-eight percent of his voters were White evangelicals.[Republicans] cannot win — I don’t care where you are in the country — without the evangelical vote,” said Ryan Burge, a professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
But at a moment when gas and grocery prices are high, the president’s approval rating is underwater, and enthusiasm among Republicans is tepid, the 2026 election could be a critical test of whether White evangelicals still have enough faith in the GOP to turn out in full force on Election Day.
“Evangelicals have to put gas in their cars just like everybody else. They gotta buy groceries just like everyone,” said North Carolina Rep. Mark Harris, a former pastor. “But I do think evangelical voters understand what is happening here.”
In recent weeks, national faith leaders like Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice have called on pastors to “step up” from the pulpit to educate their parishioners about what is at stake in the midterms. Several pastors told CNN they have mounted their own efforts to ensure parishioners and fellow pastors are mobilizing voters.
Rice told CNN in an interview that the economy is a challenge for evangelicals but that “we shouldn’t be thinking about the immediate stresses as much as we should be thinking about the underlying foundational issues; about what is right and wrong and what is true and untrue. It’s a big ask but we should make it.”
Chad Connelly, who once served as the national director of faith engagement at the Republican National Committee, has spent the last two months meeting with pastors in more than 20 states to educate them on how to discuss these issues from the pulpit.
And after more than 80 pastor meetings, he says more work still needs to be done.
“The evangelical turnout is really a difference maker,” Connelly said. “I don’t think the party has ever done enough in this realm.”
Ralph Reed, the founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, acknowledged that he has concerns, but insisted his organization is working hard to ensure evangelical voters who have skipped past midterm elections show up at the polls.
“Look, I’m paid to worry. You know, I worry as an occupational hazard and as a professional obligation,” he said. “We’re sailing into headwinds, and we all understand that, we all know the history of midterms for the party holding the White House. But you know, I’m confident that we will do our job and that we will deliver this vote, and we will deliver it in larger numbers than is typical for a midterm election.”
Reed admitted that the economy is one of those difficult headwinds.
“Man does not live by bread alone, but man needs bread to live,” he said. “So, whenever you’re dealing with issues of inflation, and, in this case, we believe very strongly, temporarily higher gas prices than we would like to see, and that the president would like to see, that impacts people in their daily lives, and sure, it has an impact.”
But some of the efforts are also just being left to individual pastors.
“A voter registration table sits at the lobby at our church,” said James Buntrock, the associate pastor at Glorious Way Church in Houston and the executive director of My God Votes.
The issue of turning out the evangelical vote has taken on major importance in Texas.
In a recent Sunday sermon, pastor Steve Riggle stood at the front of his church with a fact sheet and a stark warning for his congregants about Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico’s views on Christianity.
“This is not a political issue. It is not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue. This is a truth issue,” he warned. “A cunning deceiver does not come and make an announcement, ‘I am here to lead you away from God.’ What he will say is ‘Let me help you understand what God really means.’”
Voters are deciding between Talarico, a seminary student who has made faith a central component of his campaign but has often spoken in ways that evangelical leaders warn is counter to the Bible’s teachings, and Ken Paxton, the state attorney general whose wife divorced him on “biblical grounds” and who faced impeachment from his Republican colleagues in the Texas statehouse.
Laredo pastor Jorge Tovar told CNN that he is having conversations directly with his parishioners about the choice.
“As spiritual leaders we try to inform them and show them the facts,” he said.
Pressed on how he advises parishioners who may be conservative but have trepidation voting for Paxton, Tovar told CNN, “It’s just like President Trump as well. He has a past just like Attorney General Paxton, but when it comes to politics, people need to look at their policies and their platforms.”
The other Texas pastor whom CNN spoke to on the condition of anonymity told CNN they were walking a fine line on how they talk to parishioners about the Senate race.
“My calling in life is not to generate votes for Ken Paxton or anyone else,” they said.
Reed conceded that Texas would have likely been an easier seat for Republicans to hold if their candidate was incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Paxton defeated Cornyn in a runoff shortly after securing the president’s endorsement.
“Everyone knew that if Ken Paxton was nominated that this was going to be a race within the margin of error, and it was going to be a barn burner,” Reed said. “Everybody knew that going in. … I think even had Cornyn won that primary this race would have been competitive. Would it have been this competitive? Probably not.”
Democrats have made a more aggressive play to recapture White Christian voters in recent months, seizing on rising prices and a social justice message to begin to make the argument that the GOP isn’t the only party aligned with Christian values.
Democrats are running candidates — such as Talarico in Texas, Methodist megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas and ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James in Iowa congressional districts — they hope can start to close the so-called God gap in states where the Christian vote can make a big difference on Election Day.
Democrats believe they can make a play for Christian voters by broadening the discussion beyond debates over issues like abortion or LGBTQ rights, which they have been on the losing side of with White evangelical voters. Instead, Democrats’ message is more focused on “loving thy neighbor” and reflecting that as a central tenet of Christianity that supports their positions on reigning in immigration enforcement and pushing back on cuts to healthcare.
But conservative evangelical leaders aren’t ceding what has traditionally been a winning message for them just yet.
“I think the left’s words are mobilizing people far more than the conservative party is doing,” Connelly said. “They may have overplayed their hand in saying that I am one of you.”
Reed added, “I’m not concerned about it at all.”
On the trail, Republicans have attacked Democratic clergy candidates as “Pastors in Name Only.” Paxton often draws attention to Talarico’s past comments about his faith, including that he once said “God is nonbinary” and that Jesus was a “radical feminist,” as too extreme for many conservative churchgoers.
Talarico addressed the “nonbinary” comment on Fox earlier this year, saying, “I was being provocative with that statement. I get that. What I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God, and that’s not controversial theologically.”
In Kansas, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall has attacked Hamilton’s job as a megachurch pastor and accused him in one ad of using “faith to fatten his wallet.”
Hamilton campaign spokesperson Tyson Brody pushed back on the attacks, saying in a statement, “Adam is proud to have build a congregation of 24,000 split equally between Republicans, Democrats.”
“It’s shameful Roger Marshall has repeatedly lied about the largest congregation in the state he represents, directly smearing congregants who voted for him in past elections.”
But evangelical leaders and GOP opponents across the country are making different versions of the same argument that candidates like Talarico and Hamilton are twisting the Bible’s teachings to serve their own political purposes.
“I do think that people like James Talarico have used the Bible as a tool to help them get elected. The problem is they are reading from a different Bible then most people have ever heard of or seen,” said Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values.
Paxton campaign spokesman Madison Cercy echoed the sentiment in a statement to CNN. “Republicans across Texas are uniting behind the attorney general because they know the choice is between a proven fighter for their values and a radical who mocks those values,” she said.
Robert P. Jones, the president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, has done extensive research on White Christian voters. And while he believes evangelicals are likely to vote Republican if they show up to the polls on Election Day, he sees another warning sign for Republicans: White mainline Protestant voters.
“I don’t see any grand signs of evangelicals abandoning ship. If they have stuck with Trump this long through all the scandals, all the gaffes, all the policies, all the economic ups and downs, it is unclear to me what could possibly dislodge their support from him,” Jones told CNN. “But if you look at somewhere like Wisconsin or Michigan, where evangelicals are just 13% of the population and mainliners are 18% and White Catholics are 19%, then you are looking for a group who might sit it out or might switch their votes.”
In the last three presidential elections, roughly 6 out of 10 White mainline Protestant voters cast ballots for Trump, Jones said. But the group is seen as far more gettable for Democrats in part because it is more politically diverse.
“If I were a Republican strategist looking at the map, I would be worried about the other White Christians,” Jones said. “They are not as tethered to the president. In almost all the toss-ups I am looking at, even if Republicans gets their typical support from evangelicals, if they lose 10 points of support from the White mainline and White Catholic support, that could be decisive in all of these races.”