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‘Souls to the polls’ drives large numbers to vote in US presidential election

31 October 2024

Alamy

left: Kamala Harris attends a service at the Church of Christian Compassion, Philadelphia, on Sunday; right: Paula White and other faith leaders pray for Donald Trump at the Worship with Wonders Church, Powder Springs, in Georgia, on Monday

left: Kamala Harris attends a service at the Church of Christian Compassion, Philadelphia, on Sunday; right: Paula White and other faith ...

“SOULS to the polls” — an initiative that has its origins in the Civil Rights era — has been helping to drive the large numbers turning out for early voting in the United States’ presidential election.

With just days to go until election day on 5 November both presidential candidates have been appealing for support to faith communities, with events and rallies held in churches in crucial swing states.

Vice-President Kamala Harris earned the endorsement of more than 1000 religious leaders on Sunday, as she appeared with her pastor, the Revd Amos Brown, of the Third Baptist Church, San Francisco, at a church in Georgia, a key battleground state.

She has mentioned her faith throughout the campaign, but only when asked. At a CNN “town hall” (Q&A), she said that she prayed “every day . . . sometimes twice a day”, and that “Faith is a verb. We show it in our action in deed and in our service.”

Donald Trump also held a rally in Georgia, “Believers and Ballots”, at which abortion rights took centre stage in the warm-up before Mr Trump’s appearance. He himself has been reluctant to discuss abortion rights. Polls suggest that a majority of voters are consistently pro-choice.

Mr Trump has also faced a huge backlash to a racist joke by a comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, at the opening of a televised rally on Sunday. Mr Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage”. The joke seemed initially to threaten the inroads made by the Trump campaign into the Latino vote, but a verbal stumble later by President Biden when referring to the joke was seized upon by the Republican campaign and interpreted as an insult to Trump voters.

The RC Archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, the Most Revd Roberto González Nieves, has called on Mr Trump to apologise. The Revd Dr Gabriel Salguero, who heads the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said that his community was “deeply offended” by the joke. On Tuesday, the island’s leading newspaper endorsed Ms Harris. Mr Trump later insisted that “Puerto Ricans love me.”

The election result appeared to remain on a knife edge on Thursday. Polls suggested that it was neck-and-neck, Harris leading by 1.4 points according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker.

Churches have been preparing for the result in the election with the help of a “Day 1” guide produced by a consultancy, Vandersall Collective, which helps churches with fund-raising and long-term planning. The guide urges people of faith to hold on to the “longer view”.

“As people of faith, as bearers of God’s ancient covenant, we cannot allow our vision to be so exclusively near-sighted. We must recalibrate our focus to include a much longer horizon. We must understand that the work of God’s justice does not begin and end with an election cycle. Vote, yes. Work for the near-term outcome you desire. But remember that your commitment to keep God’s covenant will continue well beyond elections.

“Rather than succumbing to a sense of overwhelm or becoming paralyzed by dread, the time is now to reflect on your values and priorities and to discern where your energies need to focus. In addition, this is a moment to consider what groups of people may be impacted depending on the outcome. As you consider this, you can think how your strategies can show care in the days, weeks, and years to follow.”

Over eight sessions, it guides church groups to create a set of priorities and a plan for their communities, regardless of the election result.

At its final session, participants are told: “Regardless of whether you see the outcome you desire or not, the work will need to go on. You’ll either be working in alignment with those you trust, or you’ll be in the resistance against those you do not trust. Either way, there will be work to do.”

Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), which is run by the US Episcopal Church, is waiting on the result to be able to plan its workload. The previous Trump presidency slashed the refugee resettlement programme to just 15,000, but the Biden administration has increased it again to 125,000. The ministry is one of ten agencies that resettle refugees on behalf of the Federal Government. EMM has resettled more than 100,0000 refugees since it was founded in the 1980s.

One of EMM’s affiliates is the Interfaith Refugee and Immigration services, an agency of the diocese of Los Angeles. Its director, Troy Elder, told the Episcopal News Service that the election of Mr Trump would bring “a doomsday scenario”, with a dramatic reversal of refugee resettlement.

“That really is, frankly, contemplating a possible shutdown of our ministry, and it is very scary,” he said, during a webinar this week on the Church’s resettlement efforts.

Read comment from Harriet BarberPaul VallelyAndrew Brown, and this week’s Leader

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