TROY MILLER: Will Christian Voters Maintain Their Influence?

As a Christian nonprofit leader, I don’t suggest how anyone should vote in elections, with one exception: Vote biblically. On the other side of Election Day, every Christian leader should be paying attention to key signals — and warnings — about the nature of Christian participation in public life following the 2024 presidential election.

As the world’s leading professional association of Christian communicators, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) worked to educate, equip and encourage Christian voters by hosting a candidate forum at the 2024 NRB Convention, publishing numerous op-eds and releasing a series of audio PSAs urging Christians to get out and vote.

As I wrote in October, evangelical voters have the numbers to decide elections, if they turn out.

To what extent did evangelical Christians “decide” the 2024 election? As the smoke cleared, two main interpretations emerged: that Christians had a decisive impact, and that the influence of Christian voters is waning. Both are true.

While evangelical Christian voters were instrumental to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s win, there is cause for concern about the future of this voting bloc. According to a post-election survey from Dr. George Barna, Christian voters’ impact on the Republican victory was not the result of strong turnout, but of exceptionally poor turnout among Democrats’ key targets. Barna’s post-election research revealed that “Evangelical church attenders” dipped from 65% participation in 2020 to 59% turnout in 2024, while “theologically-defined born-again Christians” saw a similar drop-off.

Other findings on the political involvement of Christians show apathy taking hold. Only about half of churches across the nation encouraged their congregations to vote or taught on an issue that was related to the upcoming election. Faith affiliation had no impact on the amount of time that voters spent researching issues and candidates. Furthermore, Christians who did not vote were twice as likely as non-Christian groups to say they abstained due to a lack of interest in government and elections. This echoes Barna’s earlier finding that “theologically-defined evangelicals are no more likely than anyone else to be attentive to news about politics and government,” with more than half of those surveyed reporting that they do not pay much attention to these subjects. Equally concerning is the fact that 20 percent of voting-age, self-identified Christians “said they had intended to vote but simply forgot or never got around to it.” Whether from disinterest or forgetfulness, evangelicals are relinquishing their culture-shaping influence at a steady clip.