Elise Stefanik is being underrated as a Trump VP pick

As the national conversation around former President Trump’s vice presidential pick intensifies, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) stands out as the only woman left on the reported shortlist. A pro-Israel, anti-abortion congresswoman representing New York’s 21st district, Stefanik is also a Catholic.

Trump picking a Christian woman for his running mate might seem contradictory. After all, he was recently convicted for covering up paying hush money to a porn actor.

But I’ve been tracking right-wing Christian women since 2016, and Stefanik making the vice president shortlist comes as no surprise. Stefanik is a manifestation of Christian women’s continued support for Trump and shows that, after being dismissed for years, the group is finally being recognized as a potent political force.

White Christian women have been allied with the GOP for decades, and their support for Trump has remained strong for the past eight years. More than 90 percent of white Christian women voted for him in 2016 and a similar percentage did in 2020.

My research shows that more Christian women have become politically active since 2020 — a confluence of the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests and Joe Biden’s presidential victory, which many saw as rigged. In different ways, these three events caused Christian women to feel under attack and at the mercy of an unfair ruling elite. As a result, these women have become more politically active, and there is no going back.

If Trump wants to win in November, he will need to rally this newly engaged population and not underestimate them. Picking Stefanik as his running mate would do just that.

Christian women — including Catholics and evangelicals — have buoyed right-wing candidates and issues at other key junctures in history. In the 1970s, conservative Christian women such as Phyllis Schlafly, who started the Eagle Forum, and Beverly LaHaye, who spearheaded Concerned Women for America, entered the political fray. Those two organizations waged battle against the Equal Rights Amendment, which they claimed would advance feminism and abortion in America. They rallied white suburban women across the country, who sent checks in the mail and summoned their friends, neighbors and Bible study groups to get involved in conservative politics.

Through Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America, Christian women eventually helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. In the 1980s, Christian women helped elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency via grassroots campaigns, door-to-door canvassing and national women’s conferences.

What’s different now is that Christian women have more scope to be involved in public affairs than ever before. In the past, they prioritized the family, limiting their engagement with politics to what they could do while at home with their kids. Today, right-wing Christian women like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem hold political office, while others lead major legal organizations and conservative think tanks.

Their influence on American politics has already been clearly demonstrated. Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic woman with seven kids and a law degree from Notre Dame, was appointed by Trump to the Supreme Court in 2020, making her a role model for younger Christian women aspiring to a career in public life. In 2022, another icon, Kristen Waggoner, led the legal fight in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

But let’s be clear — even though they occupy positions of power, these women are not feminists. A traditional gender hierarchy, which places men as the ultimate authorities and upholds traditional femininity, including motherhood, remains their status quo. In this way, even when Christian women may borrow some parts of feminism, such as promoting gender parity in politics, their core ideology still rejects it.

From Christian social media influencers, to college-aged idealists and Black activists of the Blexit movement, to the mama bears marching on state capitols and the white suburbanites whom Trump and Biden are fighting over, Christian women are influencing American politics from the ground up.

Despite their differences, they share a common vision: limiting abortion access, restricting immigration and maintaining traditional ideas about gender identity. And Trump’s campaign platform is tailor-made to speak to these interests.

“Momentum is moving in our direction,” Stefanik declared recently on Fox News. And if the past four years of strategic and relentless political organizing pays off, right-wing Christian women will ensure the momentum carries straight through to Trump’s reelection.

Katie Gaddini is a visiting research fellow at Stanford University and associate professor of sociology at University College London. Her next book is about Christian women and conservative politics from 1970 to present.