Democrat Party Plans Christian Voter Outreach Despite Anti-Christian Policies

The Democratic Party plans to spend millions of dollars over several years to reach religious voters -- a bid pro-life Democrats greet with skepticism and which Christian political experts say is doomed to fail unless Democrats fundamentally alter their views on social issues to a position "believers can affirm in good conscience."

During a visit to Utah last week, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin announced a four-year undertaking to cultivate voters of faith. "Martin admitted that his party has struggled with how to reach voters on issues of religion and faith. While Democrats tend to 'shy away from those topics, they should instead embrace them,' he said," reported the Utah-based Deseret News.

Martin, who is Roman Catholic, said his faith is important to him and a "big reason" why he has dedicated his life to public service. Martin said he believes Democrats have excluded Christian values from their political discourse, because they are too inclusive. "I feel like the Democratic Party, we try to be inclusive of so many people, sometimes we shy away from conversations about faith and religion, because we don't want to alienate people and push them out of the conversation," Martin told the news outlet. "But I think, in a way, when we do that, we're actually ... pushing people out who want to hear us talk about our faith and our religion and why we believe in the things we do." 

Martin is right to be concerned. Multiple election cycles show a deep, sustained, and increasingly deficit in Democrats' support among Christians. In 2024, exit polls showed President Trump won Protestants by a 22-point margin (white Protestants by 41 points), Roman Catholics by nine points (although Harris won Hispanic Catholics by 18 points), nearly two-thirds of "other Christian" believers and Latter-Day Saints, respectively.

Today, a bare majority (54%) of Democrats identify as Christians of any description, and the number of white Christian Democrats has fallen by half over the last 15 years, according to a 2024 study from the Pew Research Center.

The DNC's new State Partnership Program will send state parties $22,500 a month in the hopes that, with "the investment of time, energy and money, a red state can become a purple state and then eventually a blue state," Martin told Deseret News.

Martin previewed that, as in years past, the Democrats' faith outreach will center almost exclusively around one verse of the Bible: Matthew 25:40, which reads, "And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, in as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'"

"I think that our party has always stood up for those who are the least amongst us, who have the least ... I think that a lot of churches also believe that, right?" Martin told the newspaper. "We need to create social safety nets so people and communities aren't falling through the cracks."

But pro-life advocates and pro-family experts say the problem is not rhetoric; it's the substance of the party's platform on key moral and biblical issues. "If Democrats truly want to win back the trust of faith-driven voters, especially in red and purple states, they must end the abortion litmus test within the party and seek moderation on other issues embraced by religious families," Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, told The Washington Stand. "There's no path to a durable majority that excludes pro-life Democrats and alienates those value-based voters."

But Day, who has seen the number of elected Democrats willing to vote for pro-life legislation dwindle over the decades, feels "a bit skeptical that Democrats have the ability to get out of the echo chamber where they reside right now."

"Just this past weekend, Archie Williams, a proud, pro-life Democrat, spoke up at the Utah Democratic Party meeting to suggest that running pro-life candidates could help win back seats. He was booed," said Day. Six of Utah's 29 state senators are Democrats, as are 14 of 75 members of the House of Representatives. "That reaction to Archie's suggestion isn't just disheartening -- it's a political liability," she said.

Numerous Democratic lawmakers have defected from the party, often citing abortion and other values issues in their exit. Kentucky State Senator Robin Webb (R-18), a former Democrat who voted in favor of most state pro-life legislation and religious conscience rights for clerks like Kim Davis, recently became a Republican. "The rural values that we have grown up [with] and value have been a continuous struggle for me," Webb told Laura Ingraham on Monday night. Local media now describe Democrats in the state Senate as a "superminority" of six, outnumbered by 32 Republican legislators.

While Day said it makes good political sense for the DNC to invest money in red-state party infrastructure, "unless that is met with substantial changes to adherence to the national Democratic messaging that is not resonating with middle America voters, it will not be successful."

The Democratic Party tried a similar outreach to faith-based voters two decades ago after values voters supporting Ohio's 2004 referendum against same-sex marriage narrowly tilted the entire presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. Democrats began discussing their newfound, deeply felt faith in every election message. At one point, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) announced, "My favorite word is The Word" and pledged to support "public policy that would be in keeping with the values of The Word." 

She went on to call abortion "sacred ground," reportedly stopped the House from voting on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act dozens of times, and said during a debate on embryonic stem cell research that "science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure." Pelosi also declared same-sex marriage is "consistent" with the Roman Catholic faith, insisting "my faith compels me" to support the redefinition of marriage. Similarly, then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) exclaimed "Praise God!" after Congress passed legislation redefining marriage nationwide in 2022.

The use of Matthew 25 has proven a staple of Religious Left rhetoric for decades, at times migrating into political discourse. In a 2017 Christianity Today editorial, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) alleged the verse justified his government-focused health care policies.

More recently, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) made a fleetingly brief reference to "the least of these" in Matthew 25 during the 2024 vice presidential debate with J.D. Vance, applying the verse to open borders immigration policies. Evangelicals for Harris cited the verse to assert that Kamala Harris -- who denounced pro-life laws as "immoral" when she became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion facility last March -- campaigned on "biblically inspired, pro-family policies."

But the 2024 Democratic Party platform endorsed taxpayer-funded abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, vowed to "vigorously oppose" laws protecting minors from the predatory transgender industry, and promised to keep "fighting" parents' efforts to keep sexually explicit books out of the hands of minors.

"From a biblical standpoint, the Democratic Party faces significant challenges appealing to believers today -- and it's not simply about messaging or rhetorical missteps. Fundamentally, the party's platform and many of its policies stand in stark contrast to what Scripture teaches about human dignity, life, and morality," David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, told TWS.

"The first and most critical issue is the party's stance on the sanctity of life," Closson, the author of the new book "Life After Roe: Equipping Christians in the Fight for Life Today," elaborated. "Scripture is clear that human life begins at conception and that every life is created in the image of God (Psalm 139:13-16; Genesis 1:27). The Democratic Party's unwavering support for abortion-on-demand -- even up to birth -- is in direct contradiction to biblical teaching about the value of life. This makes it very difficult for Christians committed to biblical ethics to support a party that actively promotes policies that end innocent lives."

"Second, the party's positions on gender and sexuality also clash with biblical truth," Closson continued. "The normalization and celebration of same-sex relationships and gender ideology, including efforts to allow minors to pursue gender transitions, violate God's good design for human sexuality (Genesis 1:27; Romans 1:26-27; Matthew 19:4-6). Christians believe God's plan for sexuality and family is good and leads to human flourishing, so policies that contradict this are not something believers can affirm in good conscience."

Finally, while Democrats often talk about caring for "the least of these," which is indeed a biblical priority, "their policies often fail to recognize the foundational role of the family and the church in caring for the vulnerable. Government programs can help, but when policies undermine the family or religious liberty, they end up harming the very people they claim to help," said Closson.

"While Ken Martin is right that people want to hear authentic conversations about faith, for Christians, it's not enough to simply talk about faith in generic terms. The Bible gives clear moral teachings, and political platforms and policies must be measured against those standards. That's why the current Democratic platform, despite its outreach efforts, faces serious credibility issues with biblically minded believers," Closson concluded.

Day agreed that however pragmatic it may be for Martin to try to plug his party's hole with voters of faith, unless those efforts are "paired with an openness to moderates and pro-life voices, it won't reach the voters Democrats are currently losing. The hemorrhaging will continue if Democrats advance their current strategy of bad ideas and resistance."

Originally published at The Washington Stand