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Evangelical

Evangelicals Don’t Get to Blame God for the Midterms

November 11, 2026 by Duncan Pile

Christian Voting

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Evangelical thinking is so painfully predictable, especially when it comes to politics. After years of declaring Trump to be God’s man or a Cyrus figure used by God to bless “the true Israel” (the Church), a new set of ready-to-install apologetics is immediately swung into place the moment the nation’s feelings about Trump are revealed. Evangelicals looked the other way when he tore families apart, when ICE murdered people in the street, when the international rules-based order was under threat from the US, when climate abuse was ramped up, and when billionaires were rewarded while the working and middle classes were impoverished.

Evangelicals wore the armour of apologetics, holding to the belief that Trump was serving a divine purpose while ignoring the suffering around them. They turned their backs on the very people Jesus urged us to care for, favouring ideas over human lives.

God Was Not in Control of the Midterms

Trump’s failure at the midterms is a crucial turning point for the US and the rest of the world, but Evangelicals can’t take any credit for that. In fact, a Fox News poll shows that white Evangelical support of Trump rose from 79% in 2024 to 82% in the 2026 midterms, making them even more culpable for everything he has done. It was mainstream Republican voters and MAGA sorts who cared more about the economy than religious dominance that turned their backs on the Orange Lame Duck. Evangelicals, on the other hand, remained unrepentant.

But what can they tell themselves now? They need a narrative or how can they accept that their prophesied saviour of America has lost his power? How can they accept that Project 2025 is over? What about all those ‘words of knowledge’ spoken about and over Trump? Have they come to nothing? What about Israel, which is so dependent on US economic and military support? When the Dems clamp down on that, what will these people believe? Has Armageddon been postponed?

Any Story But the Truth

The losses are too widespread and too severe to blame on a rigged election narrative, so some other tale is needed to soothe the Evangelical base. What can these people possibly say to comfort themselves?

That “God is in control”. This might just be a stopgap until something more divisive can be drawn up, but for now, Evangelical Trump supporters I know are falling back on Reformed Theology. The idea behind such a statement is that whatever the ups and downs of our lives, God is ‘sovereign’, and that one day, we’ll be able to stand back and see the tapestry he has woven as a whole. All the tragedies we’ve suffered will suddenly make sense, and we’ll see God for the master artist and architect he is.

This is, in my opinion, self-soothing nonsense. It’s like that disempowering poem, Footsteps in the Sand, in which a person looks back on their life’s journey as footprints in the sand, accompanied by the footprints of God. They notice that, in their hardest times, only one set of footprints is visible, and ask God why that is. God’s response is that “It was then that I carried you”. The problem with that is, it implies that at our hardest times, when the journeyman apparently felt alone, God was carrying them in a way they were unable to detect. Where’s the good in that? In our hardest times, we need the comforting presence and guidance of God the most. I can certainly say that in my own life, the company of God was sweeter and more soothing than ever in such times.

Evangelical thinking is riddled with apologetics of this sort, all of which have a single purpose – to make excuses for God when he seems to have abandoned us. A healthier approach would be to ask what choices we made and what beliefs misled us in those times that imposed an illusion of separation.

And here we are again. MAGA Evangelicals are facing the collapse of all the nonsense they’ve compromised themselves over for the past eight years and, needing a soothing illusion, they’re falling back on the old, reformed narrative – that God is in control.

Spiritual Bypassing

This kind of wilful ignorance is a form of spiritual bypassing – when we use spiritual ideas or beliefs to avoid facing difficult human feelings. If God is in control, we can’t blame ourselves, right? We don’t have to question our beliefs and allegiances and consider that the challenges we’re facing are a result of our own choices, as well as the choices of the leader we gave our support to.

Integrity would first-of-all demand that we ask ourselves difficult questions and be prepared for any answer, no matter how challenging it is to our way of viewing the world.

Who Was In Control of the Midterms?

First of all, Trump was in control. The most damaging of all his actions in terms of the electoral response was the war of choice he started against Iran. Let’s not pretend there was any real justification for this conflict, including the claim that Iran was anywhere developing a nuclear weapon. Personally, I have suspicions about why he started the war, but whatever his reasons were, the war is disapproved of by the majority of Americans, who do not see it stopping anytime soon.

Tariffs have had a devastating effect on small American businesses, who can no longer afford to import staple goods at inflated prices. Farmers have the same problem, and multigenerational US businesses are going under as a direct result of Trump’s policies.

The mass-deportation of Hispanic people from the US has been cruel, tearing families apart and bypassing any kind of due process. While some Americans seem content to let that happen, those with a conscience cannot support this in good conscience, and any backing Trump had from Latino communities has dried up. Polls show a 28-point shift from Latino support of Trump in 2024 to 2026. This was a crucial factor in the Democrats winning Texas (in the Senate, the House of Representatives, and for the Governor!).

I could go on, but this simple fact is that US voters have responded honestly to Trump’s awful policies, meaning that the huge electoral loss was brought about by Trump himself rather than by God.

It was also brought about by MAGA Evangelical voters’ support of the most disturbingly immoral US president in American history. Evangelicals have offered Trump unequivocal support, failing to hold him to account over any of his actions or policies. This slavishness allowed Trump to rely on the core Evangelical base without having to reshape his worst abuses in office, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

God was not in control of the midterm results. He has given leaders the chance to lead and voters the chance to choose. Trump and the Republicans have lost as badly as they did because of what they stood for, and what the majority of the US populace think about that, including in deep red states. If Evangelicals want to regain any kind of control, they must first take responsibility for their moral complicity in the horrors of the past two years.

11/11/2026 1:00:38 AM

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About Duncan Pile

Duncan Pile is a writer, author and speaker, living in Derbyshire, England with his wife and stepson. His mystical approach to faith straddles the Evangelical/Progressive divide, and flowing from lived experience, he is passionate about the deconstruction and reconstruction of the Christian faith.

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