Graham helped shift evangelicals to Eisenhower despite their Democratic roots

Evidence

Graham criticized the Truman administration’s “cowardly” refusal to heed General MacArthur’s advice in Korea and lamented that the country had settled for a “half-hearted war” when America’s full military strength was needed. With Truman’s term coming to an end, Graham began signaling to Republicans that they could woo the evangelical vote by aligning with evangelical views on morality and foreign policy. Eager to bring a new occupant to the White House, Graham took it upon himself to write a letter urging Dwight D. Eisenhower to enter the race. Eisenhower wasn’t a particularly religious figure, but Graham was convinced that the war hero possessed the “honesty, integrity, and spiritual power” necessary to lead the nation. When Eisenhower decided to throw his hat in the ring, he called on Graham to help mobilize religious support. Graham delivered. Despite the Democratic loyalties of southern evangelicals, sixty percent of evangelicals nationally voted for Eisenhower, helping him achieve a decisive victory over Adlai Stevenson in 1952. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 81

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off paragraph 79’s realignment frame with a concrete mechanism: a celebrity preacher as kingmaker, showing the method of tracing political change through evangelical media figures.