Christian nationalist activist and right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk interviewed evangelical pollster George Barna on his podcast yesterday about the upcoming presidential election and was deeply concerned about what Barna had to report.
Barna, who serves as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council's Center for Biblical Worldview, specializes in studying what he calls “SAGE Cons”—Spiritually Active Governance Engaged Conservative Christians—who have traditionally made up the base of the religious-right movement.
According to Barna's latest research, overall enthusiasm about voting in the 2024 election is down, but it is down significantly more among Christians who would be expected to support Trump if they did vote. Tens of millions of Christians, Barna said, simply don't care about politics or dislike the candidates and therefore do not intend to vote.
"In the last election, we had about 61 per cent of voting age adults who turned out," Barna said. "We're projecting that in this election, that's going to drop from 61 to somewhere down to 53 to 55 percent."
"Are evangelicals down more than other voters?" Kirk wondered. "Because if evangelicals decrease in enthusiasm alongside the general population, then it will basically be a wash?"
"That would be the best case scenario at this point," Barna replied. "Right now what we're seeing is that people who are committed Christians—biblical Christians, disciples of Jesus, Evangelicals, SAGE Cons, the spiritually active governance engaged conservative Christians—whichever of those segments you want to look at, what we're finding is anywhere from 10 to 25 percentage point drops in enthusiasm about this election."
"If it were a wash, I wouldn't be as concerned," Barna added. "It's not. We're dropping at greater levels and that's what's raising the alarm."
"If your numbers remain the same and there's no improvement and there's no surge in enthusiasm, is it fair to say that Christians staying at home will hand the White House to Kamala Harris?" Kirk asked.
"Yes," Barna answered. "I believe that's exactly what's gonna happen."
"George Barna is not just some rando that we put on here," Kirk warned. "This guy's been doing it for 40 years. ... How many times do we need to emphasize that there are civilizational defining issues on this? If we lose, it'll be largely because pastors and Christians arrogantly say to God, 'We don't care. We're more religious than Donald Trump.'"
"I hope they enjoy the gulags," Kirk concluded.
