(RNS) — When former Arizona Rep. Joel John, a Republican and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020, he wasn’t exactly excited about it.
“Even after I voted for him and submitted my ballot, I regretted it,” John said in an interview last month. A few months later, when a group of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, his regret deepened into disgust.
“I was so disappointed in myself” for not having been willing to say “No, I’m not going to vote for him,” he said.
Four years later, John said he feels much better about what he’s doing now: joining former Mesa Vice Mayor Claudia Walters in not only endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president, but forming an advisory committee that pledges to help convince other members of the church in his state to back the Democratic ticket in November.
“We believe in our form of government, a government of the people, the Constitution, and we believe in ways that it was divinely inspired,” John said, referring to the LDS church’s beliefs regarding the U.S. founding documents. “I just don’t think we can support someone who has shown such open hostility toward it.”
The effort may surprise some observers, as Mormons have traditionally been one of the most reliably Republican constituencies in the U.S. But the Harris campaign is hoping to capitalize on Trump’s long-standing struggles with the group, and while winning the majority of Mormon voters is unlikely, Democrats say Trump’s already comparatively weak pull with the group may have fractured further after Jan. 6 and ongoing controversy surrounding Trump’s rhetoric regarding immigrants — issues seen as important to many members of the church.
Rob Taber. (Photo via X)
The emphasis on Arizona, a vigorously contested swing state, has to do with the state’s unusually large Mormon population. The church claims 442,879 members in the state overall, and while that figure also includes children, Rob Taber, a longtime Democratic activist who coordinates the group Latter-day Saints for Harris-Walz, estimated there are “more or less” 200,000 Mormon voting adults in Arizona. In a state where Joe Biden edged out Trump by only 10,457 votes in 2020, persuading even a small percentage of that group could have a decisive impact.
Taber said he was excited by the vice president’s investment in Mormon voters, calling it “a big deal.” It’s atypical for any campaign to set up a state-level group to court Mormon votes, he explained, much less one helmed by Democrats.
“For a Democratic campaign to do that, I think that really shows the Harris campaign is taking it seriously,” he said. Taber’s organization operates independently of the Harris campaign.
The catalyst is an unusual level of ambivalence among members of the church about the upcoming election. A 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll conducted in late August found that Trump would win the plurality of Mormon voters (43%) if the election were conducted at the time of the survey (Harris would take home 20%), but that’s a far cry from the two-thirds of the LDS vote he won in 2020, when Trump made gains with the group compared to 2016. In addition, this year a full 17% of Mormon voters said they were undecided at the time and an additional 13% planned to vote for another candidate.
Even more revealing: When asked if they planned to vote in the presidential election come November, a full 20% of church members answered “maybe” — the highest of any religious group polled other than Muslims.
Walters, a former Republican now registered as an independent, said the data helps explain why she doesn’t plan to try to persuade Mormon voters who are already voting for Trump, calling attempts to do so “a fool’s errand.” Instead, she hopes to appeal to “a big chunk in the middle” — particularly Mormon Republicans, a group that has declined modestly since 2020, according to the American Enterprise Institute — who feel “the party they joined no longer exists.” She said many equate voting for a Democrat with being unfaithful to their religion, but that people like herself may be able to persuade them otherwise.
“As someone who has both been involved in politics as a registered Republican, and someone who is a person who has clung to my faith for my entire life … I can stand as an example of someone who says, “‘It’s OK — it’s more than OK. I examined these two candidates, I believe that there is a clear choice,’” Walters said.
Harris’ Latter-day Saint outreach effort is significant in part because the Trump campaign currently does not appear to be doing the same. While Trump mustered Mormon-specific campaign projects in 2020, similar efforts have yet to materialize this go-round, with the Republican only recently inviting a group of Mormon influencers to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to “strategize how to coalesce and motivate the LDS vote,” according to Deseret News. When RNS asked to speak with someone from the Trump campaign who could detail its efforts to woo LDS voters, a spokesperson sent a brief statement.
“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. Their silence on key issues vital to Mormon values has been deafening,” read the statement, attributed to Halee Dobbins, a communications director for the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party. Dobbins then accused Harris and Biden of targeting religious organizations and failing to “acknowledge God in public settings.”
It’s unclear whether Mormon voters will be moved by such arguments. John argued character remains a factor, as Mormons are called to support leaders who are “honest, wise and good” — traits he said Trump lacks. Similarly, Taber said Trump’s legal issues could be an sticking point, arguing that while some have pointed out that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was also dogged by court battles during his life, Smith “wasn’t convicted of 34 felonies” like Trump.
Walters said she thinks Trump’s controversial approach to immigration — such as proposals to implement mass deportations and making baseless claims about Haitian migrants — will impact the thinking of Mormon voters.
“In my faith tradition, we have an obligation to take care of people who are homeless, who have become homeless — and I mean that internationally,” Walters said.
Taber said Mormons may also feel empowered by a statement issued by top leaders of the church last year, which discouraged members from voting a straight-party ticket, saying doing so is “a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards.”
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign’s efforts may be bolstered by prominent Mormon Republicans who have challenged Trump, such as Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who cited his faith when he voted to convict Trump of abuse of power during impeachment proceedings. There are also prominent examples from Arizona: During the congressional hearing focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican and member of the church, explained that he resisted pressure placed on him by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to recall electors that would support Biden. Doing so would violate aspects of Bowers’ faith, he said, namely, “that the Constitution is divinely inspired.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., at the Capitol in Washington, Oct. 25, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, another Arizona Republican and a church member, repeatedly criticized Trump during his time in office before eventually serving under Biden as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Flake recently endorsed Harris for president, citing Trump’s rejection of the 2020 election results as a key deciding factor.
“The endorsement highlights the broad coalition of Latter-day Saints who have come together to support the Harris-Walz ticket as the best way to uphold our Constitution and protect religious freedom,” Taber said.
Harris’ is not the first Democratic campaign to try to court members of the church — hers is not even the first to try to capitalize off Mormon ambivalence over Trump. In 2016, when the church took the unusual step of issuing a statement implicitly rebuking Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, the Clinton campaign launched an unusual effort to court voters in heavily Republican Utah, even going so far as to open a campaign office just outside Salt Lake City. The idea wasn’t to sweep the state, but to peel off enough voters — alongside an upstart Utah-focused third-party campaign launched by LDS member and former CIA agent Evan McMullin — to deny Trump a victory. Clinton penned an editorial in the church-owned Deseret News citing Mormon history, and her campaign cut a “We are Mormons for Hillary” ad targeting members of the church. Trump still won Utah with 45% of the vote, but resistance to his candidacy in the heavily Mormon state was clear: Clinton garnered 27% of the vote and McMullin took an additional 21%.
By comparison, Taber said he sees Harris’ efforts in Arizona as “more effectively targeted,” and he is hopeful they will bear fruit for Democrats.
But for Walters, the election may also be a chance to shatter the idea that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints belongs to one political party — or candidate.
“I think we do a disservice both to the people within our community, and the people who are watching people of our faith, in leading them to believe that somehow these two things go together — if you’re a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you must be a Republican,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s helpful or healthy for anyone,” she added.
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