Ben Carson speaks at a luncheon in San Diego in January 2015. (Earnie Grafton/Reuters)
Ben Carson’s presidential campaign, borne out of his Christian faith, has officially ended.
On Friday, he announced his next campaign: to drive Christian voters to the polls to cast their ballots for someone else.
He
will be the national chairman of My Faith Votes, a non-profit
organization, he said in his address at the Conservative Political
Action Conference on Friday afternoon.
“It
is my faith that motivated me to be involved in the political process
to begin with,” Carson said in a statement provided by the organization.
“I believe Christians in this country can easily determine the next
president of the United States and all other national and local leaders,
should they simply show up at the polls. When we do vote, We The
People will once again solidify our commitment to the Judeo-Christian
values upon which our nation was founded.”
In his speech at CPAC,
Carson said Friday that a Christian voter who stays home is effectively
“voting for the other side.” He spoke of his new effort as an apparent
way to increase Republican voter turnout. “I will still continue to be
heavily involved in trying to save our nation. We have to save it.”
Johnnie
Moore, a spokesman for My Faith Votes, said that the 501(c)(3)
organization is non-partisan and non-denominational. “This is not about a
candidate, it is about a cause: that people of faith have a moral
responsibility to vote, and if they do they also have a disproportionate
effect on the election’s outcome,” Moore wrote in an email.
But
he said the campaign which Carson will lead will have a particular focus
on Christians. The organization, founded several months ago, plans to
reach voters through televangelists, YouTube and radio personalities and
local preachers. So far, it has recruited mostly evangelical leaders,
and it plans to reach out next to Catholic figures, Moore said.
“The
majority of evangelicals in this country will vote for whoever the
Republican candidate is,” Moore said. But drumming up Republican votes
is not the goal, he added.
In a 2015 Pew study,
56 percent of evangelical Protestants said they identified as
Republican, more than any other religious group but Mormons. Republicans
were more likely to attend religious services of any faith — 44 percent
said they attend services weekly, compared to 29 percent of Democrats.
Evangelical
voters have boosted candidates in the past — George W. Bush in 2000 and
2004, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in the 2008 and 2012 primaries.
But this year, exit polls in most states that have voted so far have
shown evangelical voters splitting their votes, especially among
Republican candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
A
handful of faith leaders have expressed concerns about voting for any
candidate at all in a campaign that has descended into mud-slinging.
“If
the church practiced evangelism the way we practice politics very
often, we would never see a convert. How could you convert somebody to
your faith by name-calling, shouting, insulting other faiths or other
people?” said Mark DeMoss.
DeMoss, who owns a public relations
firm for Christian businesses, advised Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012
campaigns. This year, he said he has not donated to any candidate and he
would not work for any of the four remaining Republican campaigns even
if they invited him.
“It feels like it’s reached new lows of
personal insult,” DeMoss said. “I think a lot of Christians wear a
Christian hat most of the time, and then put on a political hat and act
like they never had a Christian hat.”
If Christian voters are so
discouraged by the eventual Republican nominee that they consider
sitting out this election altogether, it will be Carson’s new job to
urge them to vote.
And if they do flock toward the same
candidate, they could sway the election, Moore said. According to a
tally by My Faith Votes, 25 million people who identify as Christian
were registered to vote, but did not vote, in 2012 — enough to change
the outcome of a presidential election if even a large fraction of them
were to cast ballots.
DeMoss thinks Carson is suited for the job
of prodding a weary flock of faithful voters toward the polls. “He was
kind of a bright spot,” DeMoss said. “He never took off his Christian
hat.”