At a Republican watch party early on Tuesday evening in the Milwaukee suburbs, Dimitra Anderson, a 64-year-old bellydancer, clutched her boa constrictor – a pet that travels with her everywhere – and issued a confident proclamation: “I’m ecstatic because I believe he’s going to win in a tidal wave.”
The night was young, no swing states had been called yet, but Anderson, who describes herself as a born-again believer, had been following the preachings of the self-styled prophets of the Christian right. They were saying Trump would win.
And they were right.
After a narrow electoral defeat in 2020 and two assassination attempts in 2024, Trump has emerged victorious – an event that Christian nationalists are celebrating as a critical win for their movement.
Now that Trump has secured his victory, figures on the Christian far right whose prominence grew during Trump’s 2016 presidency will enjoy larger followings and most importantly, close proximity to the highest office in the US. Among these figures are leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement which rejects secularism and embraces “Christian dominionism”, the idea that Christians are tasked by God to rule over society and government.
During his election night broadcast on YouTube, Lance Wallnau, a Trump ally and televangelist whose “seven mountains” mandate for Christian leadership of key pillars of society has taken hold on the Christian far right, celebrated the results.
“This is a reformation on America,” said Wallnau, describing a strategy for activists who share his ideology to capture key positions in local and state government. “It’s not done, it’s not over, it’s just starting.”
Wallnau spoke about the left, too – in dire terms.
“We have enemies now that are like a bear robbed of her cubs,” said Wallnau. “And so Trump and the nation is gonna need the church to bind up those spirits.”
Herman Martir, the director of the conservative Asian Action Network, who said on Wallnau’s show that he was affiliated with the Trump-aligned group America First Works, added that Trump’s victory did not just offer him a democratic mandate.
“We have a new mandate,” said Martir, pausing for effect. “From God.”
After Trump declared victory on Tuesday night, activists on the right circulated a photo – of the evangelical clergy and self-styled apostles and prophets of Trump’s Christian coalition laying hands on him – on social media.
Sean Feucht, a singer-songwriter and evangelical worship leader who rose to prominence in 2020 for his Covid quarantine-defying “Let Us Worship” concerts, posted a selfie on X on Wednesday morning.
“We stood in that official campaign HQ representing the millions of prayer warriors and worshipers around the world who PRAYED this moment into reality!” he wrote. “HISTORY BELONGS TO THE INTERCESSORS!!!”
Charlie Kirk, the firebrand founder of Turning Point Faith – the Christian arm of Kirk’s Maga empire, Turning Point USA – repeatedly invoked religion as he celebrated the 2024 election results.
“GLORY BE TO GOD FOR HIS GRACE,” he posted on X, earning more than 130,000 likes. “God is not done with America,” he added.
“I declare tonight that your victory is found in Jesus Christ! Rest in Him – He has you, in the name of Jesus!” echoed Paula White-Cain, Trump’s former spiritual adviser – who helped forge the alliance between Trump and the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation.
In 2016, when Trump was first nominated to lead the Republican party ticket, the support of evangelical voters was far from guaranteed. The philandering and crass reality television star had little obvious appeal to conservative Christians, but with the skillful public relations work of a few key leaders in the evangelical movement, Trump underwent a rebrand. Trump, the argument went, was, flawed yes, but nevertheless sent by God to do his work on Earth.
“With Trump, I believe we have a Cyrus to navigate through the storm,” said Wallnau on a Christian talkshow in 2016, comparing Trump to the Persian King Cyrus, a nonbeliever described in the Bible as an instrument sent by God to rescue the Jews from Babylonian captivity. The idea of Trump as a vessel for God’s will has become a core political tenet on the Christian far right.
The multiple assassination attempts that Trump faced underscored this vision, and his decisive 2024 presidential election victory cemented it and has likely thrown kindling on the ascendant Christian nationalist movement in the US.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage
