Christian Nationalism, Illiberalism, Gender, and the 2024 United States Presidential Election

This paper examines the role of Christian nationalism and support for a traditionalist social hierarchy in shaping support for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. The Trump campaign spent a significant portion of its ad budget attacking Kamala Harris over gender and sexuality issues which resonated with swing voters. In this paper I outline what Christian nationalism is, how it is strongly correlated with the desire for a traditionalist social hierarchy, and how they are both strongly correlated to support for Trump. After defining Christian nationalism as an exclusivist, conservative fusion of Christianity and American civic life, I identify three key aspects of traditionalist social hierarchy: opposition to LGBTQ non-discrimination laws, opposition to same-sex marriage, and support for religiously-based service refusals. All three show positive and statistically significant correlation with support for Trump as well as adherence and sympathy to Christian nationalism. The final result additionally empirically confirms the expected correlation between Christian nationalism and support for Donald Trump. This paper further underscores the uncertain path ahead as Trump claims to be the sole protector of America’s Christian identity, evoking a larger illiberal trend that leverages majoritarianism to institutionalize traditionalist understandings of gender and sexuality.