White evangelical voters show steadfast support for Donald Trump's presidency

After former President Donald Trump gave his victory speech early Wednesday, at the Palm Beach Convention Center, dozens of his supporters gathered in a lobby to sing “How Great Thou Art,” reciting from memory the words and harmonies of a classic hymn, popular among evangelical Christians.

It was a fitting coda to an election in which Trump once again won the support of about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters. That level of support — among a group that represented about 20% of the total electorate — repeats similarly staggering evangelical support that Trump received in 2020.

Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, one of Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporters since the 2016 campaign, called the election a “great victory.”

“Yes, there were some faith issues important to evangelicals, but evangelicals are Americans, too,” Jeffress said. “They care about immigration, they care about the economy.”

Some Trump critics fear he will implement a Christian nationalist agenda they see as giving Christians a privileged position in the country and flouting the separation of church and state.

Even if some of the administration’s expressions of religion are in rhetoric rather than policy, that can have an impact in a country that is more secular and religiously diverse than in past generations, said Andrew Whitehead, author of “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.”

“For those who do not embrace that expression of Christianity or the Christian religion or no religion at all, they will feel marked as ‘other’ and not truly American,” said Whitehead, associate professor of sociology at Indiana University Indianapolis.

Whitehead anticipated that a Christian nationalist view will likely motivate restrictive immigration policies on the grounds of protecting traditional American culture, such as the first Trump administration’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries.

Jeffress dismissed concerns of those who predict a Christian nationalist administration.

“People who are not Christians are unduly worried he’s going to institute some kind of oppressive theocracy. He has no interest in doing that,” Jeffress said, noting that Trump has shown no interest in banning same-sex marriage or imposing an absolute abortion ban.

Trump’s strongest supporters among evangelical leaders can likely expect the kind of White House access they had in the first Trump term.

Trump has proclaimed a sense of divine mandate.

“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason," Trump said in his victory speech, referring to the widespread proclamations among evangelical supporters that he received miraculous divine protection in the near-fatal assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. “And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.”

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to “protect Christians in our schools and in our military and our government” and in “our public square.” Many church-state battles in recent years have focused on Christian symbols in public settings, such as displays of crosses.

The Republican platform pledged to defend Christians as well as Jews facing persecution. While it included a general pledge to protect the worship of all faith groups, those were the only two singled out by name. The platform also championed the right to “pray and read the Bible in school.”

Trump is pledging to support other evangelical priorities, such as support for Israel and a pushback on transgender rights, saying, “God created two genders, male and female.” Evangelicals have been dismayed that Trump has distanced himself from the strictest antiabortion proposals, though evangelical leaders saw Trump as preferable to Harris' strong advocacy for abortion rights.

Pro-Trump rallies featured expressions that have been embraced by Christian nationalists, such as the song “God Bless the U.S.A." Many at Trump rallies wear shirts proclaiming, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president.”

Evangelicals' support of Trump initially took many by surprise, given his casino ventures, multiple marriages, accusations of sexual misconduct and, more recently, his central role in fomenting the 2021 Capitol riot and his conviction on fraud charges. But many supporters dispute these accusations or see him as an imperfect but powerful champion.

“People support President Trump not for his piety but for his policies,” Jeffress said.

John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wrote a book on the evangelical backing for Trump in his 2016 campaign, said the persistence of that support was not surprising.

In this campaign, Fea said he spoke with evangelicals who were uncomfortable with Trump. They were “looking for any reason to vote for Harris," such as some moderation on abortion. "I don’t think Harris was giving them much.”

It wasn’t just white, non-Hispanic evangelicals supporting Trump. So did about just over half of Latino evangelicals and about 6 in 10 white Catholics, according to AP VoteCast. Overall, about 6 in 10 Mormons also backed the former president.

Pastor Abraham Rivera of La Puerta Life Center in North Miami, Florida, attributed Trump’s popularity among all Latinos, and evangelicals in particular, to their conservative values regarding morality and family.

“The gender identity issue that the left pushes a lot, I think it puts off a lot of Latino evangelicals,” Rivera said. Members of his congregation voiced some concerns about Trump’s “personality or things he says,” but not his policies, Rivera said.

He expects the frequent contacts that Latino evangelical leaders had with Trump’s first administration to continue, giving them a voice. In contrast, he felt doors “were shut closed” in the Biden White House, which seemed to disregard the values of many conservatives.

But Rivera added: “The idea that some evil Christian right is going to take over everything is just crazy.”

Fea said a Christian nationalist agenda may be more rhetorical than substantive on the national level — whereas he said there are genuine cases of it on the local level. He anticipated that the Trump administration would not push back against such things as a new Louisiana law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and an Oklahoma education official's order for public schools to incorporate the Bible into lessons. Both face court challenges.

The 2024 Republican platform pledged to use “existing federal law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists,” as well as “jihadists” out of America. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would form a federal task force to fight the “persecution against Christians in America.”

Other groups, nationally and within local churches, are poised to push back on a Christian nationalist agenda.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State pledged to resist any Trump administration policies that privilege Christians and use claims of religious freedom as a “license to discriminate,” said Andrew Seidel, the group's vice president of strategic communications.

He anticipates the incoming Trump administration has a plan to implement the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which he said has a Christian nationalist blueprint, despite Trump distancing himself from it.

“This time, they are ready for a win,” Seidel said. “Last time they were the dog that caught the car. They didn’t know what they were doing. They're going to be ready to go on day one.”

The Rev. Tim Schaefer, pastor of First Baptist Church of Madison, Wisconsin, said he opposes Christian nationalism in part because it defies the separation of church and state – an important belief in his Baptist tradition.

“Our job then is to remind folks that we were not established as a Christian nation,” he said. “There was a desire on behalf of the founders to be a religiously pluralistic nation.”

Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell'Orto, Tiffany Stanley and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John's Church, June 1, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - Hats reading a variety of slogans including, "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president," are sold at a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump in Vandalia, Ohio, March 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, on Thursday called for lawmakers to convene a special session later this year to safeguard the state’s progressive policies on climate change, reproductive rights and immigration ahead of another Trump presidency.

The move — a day after the former president resoundingly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race — effectively reignited California's resistance campaign against conservative policies that state Democratic leaders started during the first Trump administration.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom, who reportedly has ambitions on the national stage, said in a statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared to fight in the courts, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”

Newsom’s office told The Associated Press that the governor and lawmakers are ready to “Trump-proof” California’s state laws. His announcement Thursday called on the Legislature to give the attorney general’s office more funding to fight federal challenges when they meet in December.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office spent the past year reviewing more than 120 lawsuits the state filed during Trump’s first term in preparation for new federal actions. Bonta said the governor has called the special session to line up the resources that will be needed for the state to fight any Trump encroachments on its policies without giving more details on exactly what the plans would entail.

He said his office has been working with Democratic attorneys general across the nation in anticipation of Trump winning. He said to look at the votes in California: “We rejected him. We rejected his values. We rejected his agenda.”

California's move is part of a growing discussion among Democratic state officials across the country seeking to protect policies that face threats under Trump's leadership. Other blue states are moving quickly to prepare game plans and expect a more robust battle this time around with a Republican-dominated Senate and possibly House.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she, Attorney General Letitia James and their senior staffers plan to meet regularly to discuss legal strategies to protect “key areas that are most likely to face threats from the Trump administration” such as “reproductive rights, civil rights, immigration, gun safety, labor rights, LGBTQ rights and and our environmental justice.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who as state attorney general filed dozens of lawsuits against Trump during his first term, said they will “have to see if he makes good on what he promised and ran on in terms of Project 2025 or other things.”

In some states, including Connecticut, officials are hoping to codify progressive policies into law, "but there are limits to what our ability is to do that,” Connecticut Comptroller Sean Scanlon said.

California Republican lawmakers called Newsom’s announcement a “political stunt.”

“The only ‘problem’ it will solve is Gavin Newsom’s insecurity that not enough people are paying attention to him,” Republican leader of the state Assembly James Gallagher said in a statement about the special session.

Trump's campaign didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

After Trump's win, Newsom vowed to work with the president-elect but added, “Let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”

Trump often depicts California as representing all he sees wrong in America. Democrats, which hold every statewide office in California and have commanding margins in the Legislature and congressional delegation, outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1 statewide and Harris easily carried the state in her losing presidential bid.

Trump called the Democratic governor “New-scum” during a campaign stop in Southern California last month and has relentlessly lambasted the Democratic stronghold and nation’s most populous state over its large number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, its homeless population and its thicket of regulations.

Trump also waded into a water rights battle over the endangered delta smelt that has pitted environmentalists against farmers and threatened to withhold federal aid to a state increasingly under threat from wildfires.

In a speech Wednesday morning, Trump vowed to follow through with his campaign promise of carrying out the mass deportation of immigrants without legal status and prosecuting his political enemies.

Speaking Thursday, California’s attorney general reassured the state's immigrant population, the nation’s largest.

“I can promise to the undocumented immigrant community in California that I and my team have been thinking about you for months, and the harm that might come from the Trump administration 2.0. We’ll do everything in our power and use the full authority of our office to defend you, to protect you,” Bonta said.

Over the last two decades, state attorneys general have increasingly embraced the role of challenging federal executive policy — most often when it originates with a president of the opposite party.

During Trump’s first presidency, Democratic attorneys general banned together to file suits over immigration, Trump’s travel ban for residents of Muslim countries, the environment, internet regulation and other topics.

The challenges typically have mixed records. But Trump has one possible advantage this time around. He was aggressive in nominating conservative jurists to federal courts at all levels, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Newsom has called California a sanctuary for people in other states seeking abortions. The state has passed dozens of laws to protect abortion access, including setting aside $20 million in taxpayer money to help pay for patients in other states to travel to California to get an abortion. Newsom also leads a coalition of 20 Democratic governors launched in 2023 to strengthen abortion access.

The state was also the first to mandate that all new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs sold in California be electric, hydrogen-powered or plug-in hybrids by 2035 and give state regulators the power to penalize oil companies for making too much money. California also extends state-funded health care to all low-income residents regardless of their immigration status.

“We learned a lot about former President Trump in his first term — he’s petty, vindictive, and will do what it takes to get his way no matter how dangerous the policy may be,” state Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire said in a statement. “California has come too far and accomplished too much to simply surrender and accept his dystopian vision for America.”

Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York; Steve LeBlanc in Boston; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco; and Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to the report.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks at a news conference in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

FILE - California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a press conference Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Minh Connors, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump talks with then California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, left, during a visit to a neighborhood impacted by the wildfires in Paradise, Calif., Nov. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)