Christian nationalism can’t win democratically, Moscow election shows | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Voters in Moscow decisively rejected Christ Church–backed candidates in 2025.
- Low-spend local campaigns outperformed heavily funded Liberty PAC expenditures.
- Moscow voters prioritized religious freedom and civil liberties over clerical control.
Despite efforts by Christian nationalists to grasp for more power and control, they keep breaking on the same rock: Most people — and most Christians — don’t want the state to have an official religion. They don’t want the state to enforce biblical law. They don’t think women should be disallowed from voting, or that a board of clerics should decide what books can appear in libraries, or that there should be mandatory Bible readings in public schools.
People don’t want any of this nonsense.
They want the freedom to choose for themselves.
And that was what happened yet again in municipal elections in Moscow last week. A slate of candidates financially backed and promoted by affiliates of Doug Wilson’s Christ Church — a Christian nationalist sect that years ago declared its intention to “make Moscow a Christian town,” as the Spokesman-Review reported in 2019 — stood for local election.
“According to his dad’s (book on evangelism as warfare), Douglas Wilson said, a takeover of Moscow is feasible because of the city’s relatively small size and its reputation,” the Spokesman-Review reported. “And a takeover is strategic because it would mean a significant loss to the enemy.”
Maybe not so feasible, though. Instead, the perceived backing of Christ Church was electoral poison.
All three candidates took a drubbing. Alex Simon, the mayoral candidate, won only about 30% of the vote. And in a free-for-all race, where the top three finishers in a field of eight candidates all won council seats, John Slagboom came in fifth and Gary Schoolland placed sixth.
This was despite — or precisely because of — considerable support lent by prominent figures affiliated with Christ Church.
Gabe Rench, a prominent deacon at the Christ Church-affiliated Kings Cross Church, encouraged voters to back the three, and also asked them to engage in a bit of goofy electoral gamesmanship he called the “math strategy.” Vote only for Schoolland and Slagboom, he urged, leaving the third council spot on the ballot blank.
“Because there are something like eight candidates vying for three City Council seats, the math will be in our favor, and hopefully Gary and John will win! Very simple and hope it works. Please pass this around and especially highlight the math strategy,” Rench wrote on social media.
Seems the math didn’t pencil out.
There were also considerable sums of money spent to support the candidates through a badly named entity called Liberty PAC. About a third of its money came from a sizable $8,000 donation from 3100 Capitol LLC, whose registered agent is Andrew Crapuchettes, according to Secretary of State filings. Crapuchettes is a Christ Church elder who was featured in Extremely American, the Murrow-award-winning podcast about Christ Church produced by Heath Druzin and Jimmy Dawson, for his major building purchases in Moscow.
But money didn’t matter much.
In the mayoral race, mayor-elect Hailey Lewis reported spending less than $3,000, compared to Simon’s over $8,000, and she cruised to a casual and overwhelming victory. Slagboom spent over $10,000 to come in fifth, while the three winners each spent about half that or less. Liberty PAC added over $15,000 in independent expenditures and electioneering communications in favor of the Christ Church slate.
The failure of Christian nationalists to consolidate power in Moscow, a small town that has long been in its crosshairs, is “part of a broader pattern we see in response to more authoritarian policies. When people begin to feel the impact, we start to see how dramatic or draconian they are,” Liz Yates of the Western States Center, which tracks antidemocratic movements, said in an interview.
“In Moscow, they’re known entities,” Yates said. “Voters there really know what that brand of Christian nationalism means. It’s explicitly sexist. … Once people are really faced with the knowledge that that is explicitly part of the long-term agenda, they know they want freedom of religion and other basic civil liberties.”
While Wilson specializes in getting himself attention — which no doubt helps his ego and certainly can’t hurt when the collection plate makes the rounds — his brand of Christian nationalism is a loser any time it’s put to the test of democracy.
“I think they do overestimate their influence,” retiring Moscow City Council Member Julia Parker said in an interview. “Doug Wilson gets a disproportionate amount of attention because he’s bombastic, and he says outrageous things. But the reality is Moscow, this little town, has been fighting this idea that the church is going to take over Moscow for decades.
“And we continue to win.”
Bryan Clark is an opinion writer for the Idaho Statesman.
This story was originally published November 11, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This column has been updated to correct campaign finance figures.