News,
Why the GOP’s battle for the soul of ‘character conservatives’ may center on Utah: U.S. politics expert
: detailed suggestions and opinions about
Why the GOP’s battle for the soul of ‘character conservatives’ may center on Utah: U.S. politics expert
.
The former CIA operative, investment banker and Republican policy adviser left the GOP in 2016 because of Donald Trump. McMullin then ran for president as an independent, styling himself as a principled conservative, and won 21% of Utahans’ votes.
Lee himself voted for McMullin in 2016, saying Trump was “wildly unpopular” in Utah because of “religiously intolerant” statements about Muslims. Some 62% of the state’s residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has its own history of suffering persecution. Yet Lee embraced Trump after his election, and now McMullin is trying to upend him.
Both men are devoted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often known as the Mormon church or the LDS church. As a scholar of U.S. elections and author of two books on LDS politics, I see their November face-off as part of a larger fight over what it means to be a “character conservative.” This battle has been raging around the country, not only in Utah; but LDS voters have become an especially interesting example since Trump’s rise.
Over two centuries, Latter-day Saints have transformed themselves from among the most persecuted religious groups in U.S. history to a global religion of almost 17 million members, by their own count, with an estimated US$100 billion in resources.
Politics has always been woven into this history. Early Latter-day Saints were forced gradually westward from state to state because of neighbors’ distrust, mob justice and government oppression – most notably, an extermination order was issued by the state of Missouri in 1838. The church ultimately fled the U.S. after founder Joseph Smith was killed and settled around Salt Lake, which was a Mexican territory when church members first arrived.
Leave a Comment