It’s hard to believe the 2020 presidential election is almost exactly a year away. I’ve never seen an election heat up so early. In fact, in some ways, the election of 2016 never really ended. The battle over biblical vs. unbiblical values is still raging—and if Christians don’t turn out to vote in 2020, we could see some scary consequences.
Respected conservative political activist Ralph Reed says that, in some ways, the upcoming election reminds him of when he worked with George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Reed was a crucial part of Bush’s campaigns from the very beginning. Because the 2000 election resulted in a vote recount in Florida, that election never really ended. Reed says the 2000 and the 2004 election maps are almost identical with two small exceptions.
I invited Reed onto my “Strang Report” podcast to explain his profound insight into the upcoming election.
“I’m not predicting anything,” he says. “I’m not a prophet. I’m not in the predicting business. I’m not a pundit. But looking at it today with a year to go, it looks to me like this election never really ended. It just kept going. The other side has never accepted Trump as a legitimate president.
“They’ve argued that his election was decided or determined or delivered. [They believe] his victory was delivered by a hostile foreign power. They refuse to accept that they lost and lost fair and square.”
The hostility against Trump has more than just political and cultural effects. It’s also extremely expensive. Reed expects this election to cost anything between $6-$8 billion. He thinks half of that will be spent on the actual presidential campaigns.
Not only that, but the left is so energized for 2020 that they are willing to do almost anything to make sure Trump doesn’t win. Because of this, it’s dangerous for conservatives to think Trump is definitely going to win the election.
“If you go into a contest with these kinds of stakes with overconfidence or arrogance or hubris, I can virtually guarantee you’re going to lose,” Reed says. “And if you don’t believe me, just look at the way Hillary conducted herself, her media.”
Reed says Clinton’s campaign adviser, David Plouffe, told news media at different points that Clinton had a 0% chance of losing the election. And yet Trump won because of about 80,000 votes spread out over three states, Reed says.
The bottom line is that no one truly knows what will happen in the 2020 election. Reed says that in 2014 midterm election, 84 million people went to the polls. In the 2018 midterm election—after Trump was elected—114 million people voted. That’s a 57% increase in voter turnout! It’s possible that 2020 will have a similarly high turnout rate, and if that happens, no one can predict which way the votes will swing. (Listen to my podcast about why evangelicals will be key to Trump’s re-election.)
“We need to make sure that our churches, our pastors, our parachurch ministries are, as an act of Christian citizenship and without endorsing a candidate, are making sure everybody’s registered to vote, informed and turned out,” Reed says.
“[Consider] what Trump did in Israel, recognizing Jerusalem, moving the embassy and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, and after what he did by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal … what he’s done on life and what he’s done to keep his word on two Supreme Court picks and another 160 federal judges that are pro-life and for religious freedom.
“If the Christian community doesn’t rise up like it never has in modern political history, and if we allow through our inaction the left to remove this man from the Oval Office, we will deserve everything we get.”
And what will we get if Trump doesn’t win? Reed says the picture is bleak. If a Democrat takes the White House, we would very likely see the government persecuting Christian organizations again and, under Obamacare, be able to force them to pay for abortions.
“If we don’t turn out and vote in the biggest numbers ever, we deserve it to happen—and I hope and pray it doesn’t,” Reed says.
I appreciate Reed’s boldness and willingness to say the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. And he’s right—if Christians don’t vote, we can’t complain about the terrible things that could happen in a liberal takeover.
That’s why I encourage you not only to vote but to also urge all your Christian friends and family members to do the same. Share this article if you agree, and be sure to listen to my full interview with Reed about the importance of the 2020 election!
Reed is one of the main sources for my new book God, Trump and the 2020 Election, which goes to press this week and releases on Jan. 14, 2020. In future newsletters, I will write more about the book, but today I wanted to encourage you to pre-order it. If you pre-order from any online retailer by Jan. 13, 2020, you can go on the website GodTrump2020.com and receive free items worth over $90, including three e-books (God and Donald Trump, Trump Aftershock and this new book, God, Trump and the 2020 Election, sent to you when the book releases). You also will get a six-month subscription to the world’s best charismatic Christian magazine—Charisma. (Will you forgive me for that bit of hyperbole since I founded the magazine 44 years ago?) If you already subscribe to Charisma, the six months will be added to the end of your subscription.
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