Systemic electioneering from the evangelical pulpit: Evidence from a computational analysis

Abstract

Religious institutions’ engagement in prohibited electoral advocacy is a growing concern for democratic governance. In the United States, such mobilization has been especially visible within the evangelical movement. We examine this phenomenon using a corpus of 88,546 sermons from predominantly evangelical churches, transcribed from 63,683 h of Sunday services spanning the 2020, 2022, and 2024 election cycles and a nonelection control period. Analysis of this corpus reveals that direct political advocacy and endorsements are widespread: 14.7% of churches engaged in this speech during the three months surrounding the 2024 election. This behavior follows a clear electoral rhythm, peaking on the Sunday before Election Day, when 3.5% of churches mobilized. Geographic analysis indicates that advocacy correlates with county partisan composition but lacks strategic targeting; rates in swing states are indistinguishable from those in safe states. Our results provide large-scale quantification of political speech from American pulpits that constitutes prohibited electioneering under current Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines, revealing a pattern of base mobilization driven by local partisan context rather than national electoral strategy.