Tuesday was a good night for Kansas abortion-rights campaigners and for many Republicans blessed by Donald Trump. Democrats are calculating that both factors could foretell a good night for them on Election Day.
Whatever, journalists attuned to the potent though oft-neglected religion factor should especially focus on the Michigan Republican U.S. House primary win by neophyte John Gibbs, a Trump-endorsed 2020 election denier.
In this significant showdown, Gibbs edged incumbent Peter Meijer (pronounced “Meyer”) with 52%. It helps to remember that Trump staged his final campaign rallies in a very symbolic location — Grand Rapids — in 2016 and 2020.
As a brand-new House member, Meijer voted to impeach President Trump for attempting to overthrow President Biden’s Electoral College victory. (Meijer’s predecessor in the seat, Justin Amash, had backed the 2019 Trump impeachment, quit the Republican Party and retired.)
Among last year’s 10 pro-impeachment House Republicans, five others sought party re-nomination. At this writing two of them led Trumpite challengers in Washington state’s Tuesday “jungle primary,” Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse. North Carolina’s Tom Rice lost big, California’s David Valadao won and Liz Cheney faces Wyoming voters August 16. Four decided to retire.
Underscoring hopes to flip the Michigan seat, House Democrats’ campaign arm horrified some party stalwarts by spending $435,000 on ads to boost Gibbs’s name recognition, while undercutting Meijer as the far stronger November opponent. In what turned out to be an obituary, a Monday Meijer blog post denounced Democrats’ “nauseating” violation of “moral limits.”
This brings us to the obvious GetReligion question: Why religion-beat buzz about Michigan District 3?
Simply because it centers on Grand Rapids, as much as any northern town a symbolic buckle on an established Bible (especially Calvinist) Belt outside of the South.
The devout and devoutly Republican region elected Gerald Ford to the House for 25 years before he ascended to the vice presidency and presidency. It was later represented for 26 years by two Ph.D's who taught at Calvin College (now University) — political scientist Paul Henry (whose theologian father Carl was founding editor of Christianity Today magazine) and physicist Vern Ehlers. Calvin faculty members still affirm Reformed Protestant doctrines, but there are tensions there.
Beyond that, unverifiable legend claims that Kent County has more local churches per capita than any other U.S. county. The local realtors’ alliance lists 147 in just the Christian Reformed Church and Reformed Church in America, two denominations with offices in Grand Rapids. The local scene further features an array of influential Protestant schools, media companies, publishers and “parachurch” agencies.
This is the kind of turf where Democratic House nominee Hillary Scholten’s campaign bio says family and “my Christian faith have shaped who I am.” The activist attorney lost to Meijer 53%-47% in 2020, but redistricting now gives the district a slight Democratic tilt. The fact that Gibbs is Black in an 83% white district (with nearly a third of German or Dutch ancestry) is unlikely to matter.
Speaking of piety, software engineer Gibbs’s appeal includes seven years in Japan as a lay missionary providing technical assistance with conservative Baptists’ WorldVenture. Meijer, an Iraq War vet who lists himself as generic “Protestant,” comes from an illustrious Michigan clan whose stores, which banned Sunday sales till 1969, now operate in 206 midwestern cities. They sponsor Simply Give and Food Rescue charities, and have won six annual awards for aiding disabled employees.
You get the picture.
Trump fealty is a factor but does not dominate. This reminds the media that Michigan is not Mississippi and faithful conservative and evangelical churchgoers come in many varieties. If Scholten manages a dramatic grab of this historic Republican seat, with similar Democratic wins elsewhere, such damage wrought by Trumpism may give pause to Republicans plotting 2024 presidential and Senate prospects.
Finally, a repeat of a frequent Guy Memo sermonette.
Despite continued elite-media fascination with evangelicals, they’ve been predictably lopsided Republican voters for decades. Far more significant is the past generation’s conversion of White Catholics from kneejerk Democrats into Republican-leaning swing voters.
Now similar shifts may be developing among some Hispanic Catholics and Protestants. GetReligion has been noting all of those developments for five or six years no.
Thus do not miss June’s RealClearPolitics/EWTN poll of 1,757 Catholic likely voters in which 44% planned Republican votes for Congress vs. 43% for Democrats, with 13% undecided. On party ID, 42% were Democrats, 38% Republicans and 20% Independents.
The White Catholics gave President Joe Biden scant 36% job approval, compared with 59% among Hispanics. See data on abortion and other issues here.
FIRST IMAGE: Illustration with a “Dutch in GR” feature at the Experience Grand Rapids website.