Both presidential campaigns have stepped up efforts to court an unlikely group of potential swing voters: Latter-day Saints.
Reliable Republicans for decades, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have hardly been viewed as up for grabs. But the church is changing, and now Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are battling for a group that could play a role in determining who wins the key battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada.
On Thursday night, Harris’ campaign held a Zoom call with prominent Latter-day Saints, including Evan McMullin, the one-time independent presidential candidate, to motivate members of the church and reach those who might be on the fence about backing Trump. The call was held a week after the campaign launched an advisory committee in Arizona with the same goals.
Earlier this week, Trump met with members of the church at Mar-a-Lago to shore up his own support among them, his campaign said.
“It’s interesting how things are heating up — they’re treating it like we matter, because we do,” said Rob Taber, a member of the church who leads the Harris campaign’s efforts. “We are a swing demographic.”
Although many Latter-day Saint voters questioned Trump’s character and detested his mockery of women and immigrants, most initially stuck with him in 2016. In 2020, a portion — 18% in Arizona — backed President Joe Biden, helping flip the state blue. This year, Democrats believe that an even greater number, perhaps disgusted by Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and by his felony convictions, could turn their backs on the Republican Party.
In the Western battlegrounds, even a moderate desertion by Latter-day Saint voters could prove fatal to Republicans’ chances because of the sizable number of church members in both states. There are nearly 500,000 members of the church in Arizona, about 7% of the state’s population, though that number includes children. There are upward of 180,000 members of the church in Nevada, a number that also includes children.
In recent history, Latter-day Saints have been among the most consistently Republican of any faith group. Utah — where the church is headquartered and where Latter-day Saints comprised more than half of voters in 2020, according to exit polls — has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
Members of the church tend to be more educated and wealthier than the average American, and they are often more interested in world affairs, because of the mission trips young members embark upon to evangelize around the globe.
At Mar-a-Lago this week, Trump spoke with both political leaders and Latter-day Saint influencers, a meeting first reported by the church-owned Deseret News. In 2020, his campaign started efforts to motivate church members earlier in the election cycle. This time, Republicans might face a steeper challenge — though they expressed confidence that church members would believe Trump was the candidate who stood for protecting religious liberty.
“In the last four years under Kamala Harris, Democrats have abandoned the Mormon community and led the charge on an attack on the freedom of religion and religious institutions,” Halee Dobbins, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. “In contrast, President Trump has consistently stood with believers by protecting religious institutions, appointing constitutionalist justices and defending Christian values nationally and abroad.”
On the Harris campaign Zoom call, a host of Latter-day Saint supporters and campaign officials — including Austin Weatherford, the Republican outreach director, and the Rev. Jennifer Butler, the national faith engagement director — offered tips on how to sway fellow churchgoers who might dislike Trump but be hesitant to back a Democrat.
A sticking point for Latter-day Saint voters has been abortion, which the church has long opposed, with some exceptions. Some members, especially women, have begun to express more openness to abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but the Harris campaign acknowledged that others might still be skeptical.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not be telling women what to do with their body,” Megan Jones, a senior political adviser to Harris, said on the call.
Jones suggested that church members who did not want to cast a vote for Harris could help in other ways, such as by canvassing or volunteering as election workers.
“In Nevada,” she added, “you can persuade them to vote ‘none of the above,’ and that helps us.”
McMullin, who earned 21% of the vote in Utah in his long-shot presidential bid in 2016, argued that November’s election was about “defending American democracy” from Trump, a mission that he said should resonate with Latter-day Saints and transcend party lines.
“I believe that question, whether America will continue to be a democracy or whether we will continue to head down a path toward authoritarianism,” he said, “will be answered in this election.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
