GOP loses its religion, gets better shot at win

The religious right might be flexing its muscles as it pushes to restrict abortions and ban gender-affirming surgery for minors in many states. But when it comes to strength in the Republican Party these days, the real brawn can be often found elsewhere: among the less religious.

This isn’t to say that Republicans are giving up on faith. Nine in 10 Republicans believe in God, and 87 percent say the Bible is either the literal or “inspired” word of God. But as the country as a whole becomes less religiously active, so, too, is the GOP.

This nonpracticing bloc of the party has grown ever-more powerful — silently driving much of the GOP’s agenda and forcing it to adopt a more populist bent.

Nonchurchgoers played a central role in pulling the GOP toward Donald Trump and his brand of populism over the past six years. In the early years of the Trump administration, they were the most likely to support his hard line on immigration.

Like Trump, they were skeptical of the GOP’s economic orthodoxy. This explains why they saw Trump as an ideological ally. On a seven-point scale running from “very liberal” to “very conservative,” the average nonchurchgoing Republican placed both themselves and Trump in the “somewhat conservative” camp. Weekly church attendees, by contrast, saw a larger gap between Trump’s ideology and their own.

As Trump’s first term wore on, these non-attendees remade the GOP in their own image. By 2022, weekly churchgoers largely shifted their views on many issues to match those of their less-religiously active peers. For instance, 85 percent said they wanted $25 billion in new border spending, including a wall on the border with Mexico. Republicans almost unanimously approved of Trump’s economic policies — a mix of traditional GOP tax cuts and populist trade deals favoring U.S. manufacturers.

Weekly church attendees pushed Trump right on some issues, such as abortion. But Trump shifted their entire worldview, convincing them that his populism was true conservatism. Soon, they saw a thrice-married adulterer who routinely defied GOP orthodoxy as one of their own.

Of course, less religious voters haven’t won every dispute within the GOP. On abortion, the most faithful voters run the show, even though they’re much more likely to support total bans than non-churchgoing Republicans.

Perhaps this helps explain — at least in part — why many less religious voters came to view Trump, who embraced the antiabortion cause while in office, as significantly more conservative than when he was first elected.

Nonchurchgoing voters don’t want their party to go too far on abortion, and Republican leaders would be wise to listen to them. Strict abortion bans are radioactive outside the most devout corners of the Republican Party, which is partly why congressional Republicans lost so many close races in the 2022 midterms.

Nonchurchgoing Republicans could help the party in other respects as well. They have shown a greater capacity for reflection than many of their partisan peers. Most voters struggle to view their own leaders clearly, but less-religious voters accurately tracked Trump’s shift from an iconoclastic populist outsider to someone who is willing to support typical Republican policies. The GOP could benefit from more of that clarity.

Less religious Republicans have also shown they can introduce new issues to a sclerotic party. They’re pushing back against outmoded libertarian economic ideas. And the ugly, secular culture wars they’ve pushed — such as the border wall — arguably helped put Trump in the White House.

Expect more changes like this in the GOP if non-churchgoers continue to gain power. Candidates who are nominally religious but deeply populist — in the mold of Trump’s 2016 candidacy — will become more common. Meanwhile, traditional White evangelicals such as former vice president Mike Pence won’t go extinct, but their power will wane.

A new Republican Party might emerge — thick with Christian symbolism, light on religious practice and ecumenical in its culture wars. This Republican Party would be less pious and polite. But it might be able to win more elections.