Can the church save America? Chad Connelly, Founder and CEO of Faith Wins, joins Jenny Beth to reveal how mobilizing pastors and empowering congregations to vote biblical values is transforming elections across the country. With nearly 20,000 churches in his network, Connelly explains why engaging the faith community is the key to preserving freedom, restoring truth, and saving the republic. From voter registration drives to poll watching efforts, discover the powerful impact churches can have when they rise and lead. Listen now to learn how faith in action can shape the future of our nation.
Can the church save America? Chad Connelly, Founder and CEO of Faith Wins, joins Jenny Beth to reveal how mobilizing pastors and empowering congregations to vote biblical values is transforming elections across the country. With nearly 20,000 churches in his network, Connelly explains why engaging the faith community is the key to preserving freedom, restoring truth, and saving the republic. From voter registration drives to poll watching efforts, discover the powerful impact churches can have when they rise and lead.
Listen now to learn how faith in action can shape the future of our nation.
Twitter/X: @ChadConnelly | @faithwinsorg | @jennybethm | @tppatriots
Website: https://faithwins.org/
Chad Connelly (00:00):
So I started realizing, boy, if we can get pastors to just encourage their people to register to vote, they'll vote this year and back it up with go vote Biblical values using voter guides, issues that drive the people's attention and then make sure they turn out and vote. You have moved the needle.
Narrator (00:18):
Keeping our republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:50):
Today I'm joined by Chad Connolly who is with Faith Wins, and I'm so excited that you're here today. Chad, you used to be a state party chairman, right? For the Republican Party?
Chad Connelly (01:00):
Yes, and Jean Beth Martin, I'm honored to be anywhere with you. You are a hero to our calls and I've watched you way before I got to know you here at our organizational meetings. But thank you for having me. And yeah, our state party chairman, it's been a God thing. The whole story's been a God thing and got to be first ever national Director of Faith engagement for Rights Prius. And then my conservative beliefs clashed with the new RNC political department that frankly their exchange with the Bible appeared to be every other Thursday when they made dusted around it and who wanted to tell me how to work with pastors. So I started Faith Wins
Jenny Beth Martin (01:36):
And this was not the most recent RNC chair during the Trump
Chad Connelly (01:41):
Campaign. No, this was 17. Yeah, it was 2017.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:45):
So I have people who come up to me as I'm going around the country and they'll say, well, I want to do something and my church or I want to be involved and I am involved and really active in my Sunday school class. And I always recommend that they check out the work that you're doing, that they check out the directions that Kelly Shackelford has over at First Liberty. So it's explain. If somebody asked me that and I said, oh, well you should check out Faith Wins, how would you encourage them to connect their pastors?
Chad Connelly (02:16):
Well, thanks for doing that. And what we did was we had Matt Staver, Kelly Shackleford, friends of ours in the Christian legal space, they did me a one pager church do's and don'ts. It's A PDF on our site. You can print it out, you can do it a size for your bulletin. You can hand it out in Sunday school classes. People would be amazed what they can do legally inside church. Literally the line is you can't lobby more than 15% of your time. And by the way, I don't know any churches that are lobbying, right? None. They're spending zero time, much less 15%. And the pastor can't say, we must vote for, and I'm the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church and you're down the street and you're telling people you must, that's the line. The pastor can literally stand in the pulpit and say, here's who I'm voting for, here's why. Here's the issues I care about. You can hand out voter guides, but if somebody wants to get involved, I want them to run a voter registration drive immediately. You'd be stunned, Jenny Beth, how many people in churches aren't even registered to vote? That's really the number that got me. I don't know, probably 20 years ago, George Barna said some 80 million people sitting in church and 40, 45 million don't vote, and over half of those aren't even registered.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:24):
It's unreal, isn't it?
Chad Connelly (03:25):
It's stunning. How do they read the word and look, you and I know now there are plenty of people who have church and aren't reading the Bible, they're not reading the same one clearly based on the things that they've changed and the standards that aren't standards anymore. So I don't know how you read Matthew five, even Jesus' words about being salt and light in the Sermon on the Mount. And he says, if the salt is lost its flavor, it's savor, it's good for nothing to be thrown. The street and trodden before the feet of men sounds like a terrible day to stand before the Father and be told, Hey, you were good for nothing. To me, that's base Christian stuff. I got to go find a way. And I tell 'em, look, it's not just about voting. Go be involved in your community. Coach the little league team, run the scouting organization. Go be involved. Don't sit on the sidelines. I don't think we have that luxury anymore at all. So if somebody says, I want to be involved, go to faith wins.org, find out how to do a voter registration drive. We've got it for all 50 states. We've got the forms, we've got all everything they need. And basically it's put a table in the back of the room or in the foyer and the vestibule and get the forms. We can get those to you. Stand there and make sure people are registered. That's it.
Jenny Beth Martin (04:31):
That's really good. And then you also work with pastors, right?
Chad Connelly (04:35):
That's our main thrust actually is we spend time building relationships with pastors. So coming from the political world and as a Christian first though, what I noticed was nobody understands how to work with pastors and they don't understand that pastors aren't a data point. Most people see me, you everybody in your organization, their data point consultants see 'em as one. And I started realizing these pastors are not a one data point. They're multipliers, they're forced multipliers. So the average church in America right now has like 155 members. So our average church we work with, last time we did the survey was 3 37. So we were a little bit above the sweet spot. And if you find a pastor that's got 337 members, most of those are voting obviously that's probably a 95% of those are voters. So around 300 people in a church that are voters that person can influence.
Chad Connelly (05:24):
And when we bump up the data, Jane Beth, it's like 50% of them vote, which you and I know the math, that's just how it shakes out. So I started realizing, boy, if we can get pastors to just encourage their people to register to vote, they'll vote this year and back it up with go vote biblical values using voter guides, issues that drive the people's attention and then make sure they turn out and vote. You have moved the needle. I saw that early on and when I left my chairmanship in South Carolina, went to work with Prebus. The reason he noticed I was doing Al Sharpton show on M-S-N-B-C, which was not easy. No, it was one of those things where you don't have any audience feedback. You got a camera, there's a camera guy and a makeup lady. I can't even see him. His producer's cursing in my earbud telling me what an idiot I am for being a conservative Christian. AL'S telling me, call me Reverend Al and I'm thinking I just need to stay on track. But I'm also thinking I got far too much respect for NCE to call you reverend anything.
Chad Connelly (06:25):
And so I'm trying to stay focused, but I'm beating up the party for leaving out the faith vote. And I had been in meetings with Rove and everybody else around the party in the 20 10, 20 11, 20 12, 20 13, and I just was, I'm blown away. The left doesn't ignore their base and we take 'em for granted. And that was my whole message. Prius texted me, he said, Hey, I'm a believer too. You and I should talk. That's where GOP faith was born.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:50):
That's really good. And how many pastors are in your network?
Chad Connelly (06:54):
So right now we don't have the biggest list. It's okay. I believe we have the most effective list because we vet them. We don't buy any list. So we have a little over 19,800 and something churches in all 50 states that have either been to our meetings or been on a Zoom with me or one of my pastor buddies on our team has added them to the list. So here's their vetting is they're doing voter registration. A lot of 'em are helping us recruit poll watchers or they're sending people out to take over party meetings and be involved. They get to choose which party obviously, but we direct 'em to go get involved in local party and have a Christian voice.
Jenny Beth Martin (07:28):
Well, 19,000, 19,800, that's almost 20,000. I bet you'll exceed 20,000 this year. Yeah,
Chad Connelly (07:35):
We'll
Jenny Beth Martin (07:37):
A huge, that is a massive number. So don't sit there and go, well, it's not as big. It's very large. It's so important. Well now are there other groups that also work with pastors or work with the faith community and how are you different? I'm not trying to pick on any, I think there are a lot of different groups in this space that do some work with the faith community.
Chad Connelly (08:03):
If there were a hundred more, it wouldn't be enough. There are plenty of pastors to talk to. We probably do it a little differently. I tell pastors that I don't use a political approach. I want to go a spiritual approach that creates a political impact. And I think most of the consultants are driven toward previous used to say, let's stop parachuting in three months in and say we're making a difference in the community. We're all about constant engagement. And so what we do different is actually I have pastors on my team. I don't hire political people.
Chad Connelly (08:33):
I make sure pastors are blessed and take care of them running around the state and I challenge 'em. I want you to add 10 pastors this month right now in particular states that we're working Virginia, New Jersey, Wisconsin, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, A lot of issue based stuff. But what I'm telling 'em to do is find 25 churches in this area, this house district mostly and tell 'em to do two things, register everybody to vote and get 'em vote biblical values. I don't need 'em to charge the beach at D-Day in the German machine gunfire, but can they register everybody to vote and teach 'em to vote biblical values and moving that needle a little bit. Then we track it based on vote registration in the county and we come back and we know we've moved the needle. We've raised a over 2 million non-voting Christians since 2020.
Jenny Beth Martin (09:16):
That's massive. Chad, that's really a large number. If there is a pastor listening right now and they're like, oh, I want to know more, what would their experience be like if they get involved with you?
Chad Connelly (09:31):
Yeah, so first thing, go to faith wins.org. F-A-I-T-H-W-I-N-S, faith wins.org. You sign a pledge and here's how, and you just get my information. We will be doing meetings. We're kind of in that time right now I'm in fundraising mode and build my team. I spend time with the people who've already done the first steps. We'll start back doing bigger meetings June, July, like that and going into the fall, setting up for 2026. And we're building those teams in senate race states and also key congressional areas and only talking about the issues. So go on there, take the pledge and we'll be in touch with you when we're coming locally to do you take David Barton with me? I take Bob McKeon with me and they're great at saying why. And we show 'em how.
Chad Connelly (10:14):
We show 'em exactly how to be involved. And so they'll get invited to a smaller group meeting and that's what we do. Judy Beth is we do meetings with five or 10 or 20 and the small meetings create a big meeting and in the big meeting you meet new people that want to do a small meeting and RIN and repeat. It's not rocket science. I would say that's what we do different. Most people do really large meetings, which everybody loves large meetings. The consultants want 11 K billion in every meeting. That's my number. It's infinity and beyond like buzz light years. And so they want this massive meeting and that's great. I'm not opposed to them. But then it is tough to always produce a large meeting number one, but the small meeting you connect.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:53):
Well, the large meetings can be very glitzy and they're good because they're sort of candy. You get a sugar high from it and everyone needs that. You need that energy to keep going. But oftentimes the biggest thing to help something continue to go is the momentum. Once you've pushed, then you just have to keep that momentum going and that's what you're working on. It's a day in day out grind, but that grind is how things keep rolling
Chad Connelly (11:24):
And the relationships, I mean I just think we're coming back to a time where people really appreciate real authentic relationships
Jenny Beth Martin (11:30):
I think. So
Chad Connelly (11:31):
We did 124 pastor meetings, 124 cities in 20 states from July 1st to the election. Of those a hundred twenty four, twenty nine or 30 were big evening meetings. They were larger crowds because I want more people to see a David Barton or Bob McEwen or I want to have a community and I want to utilize their time effectively. But the biggest part is the smaller meetings, breakfast, lunch where there's eight or 12 or I think our biggest one was probably 35, 36 for a lunch. We keep it that way.
Jenny Beth Martin (12:02):
Well, and it builds a relationship with you, which is very important, but it also builds a relationship with them
Chad Connelly (12:08):
So
Jenny Beth Martin (12:09):
That they start to get to know each other and can be a support system for one another.
Chad Connelly (12:14):
What's amazing is when they hear from another pastor, oh, it's the community, it's the EM boldness. I could tell you stories. There's one that sticks out just exactly what you're saying is in Wisconsin central area, we had picked a really key spot of lacrosse and I was looking at the numbers going, boy, if Christians would just vote here, make a massive difference and there's nobody working on turnout. And so I had a pastor who's on our team who got another pastor who had just shied away from anything that looked political, but he let us use this place and it was like 40 people there for a luncheon. This was last spring or something, maybe, I don't know, somewhere in this cycle. And I said, Hey, thanks for letting us use your place. He said, well, I'm pretty skeptical, Chad, and I'll let you use this because your guy's a mentor.
Chad Connelly (13:01):
Well thanks. What are you skeptical about Pastor Shane? He said, well, I guess just the whole political thing. I said, do you think I want you to be political? He said, well, yeah. I said, no, no, I just want you to be biblical. And he said, what do you mean? I said, stick around for my talk. And David Barton's afterwards. And he did. He stuck around. He came up at me and he grabbed me by the arm and he said, I want to be ground zero for everything you're doing in our state. And I could tell those stories in every single state, and we're working in New Jersey and Virginia right now to prove that really the place we ought to be impactful with pastors is those blue states that are marginal purple states where a lot of Christians have just given up. They're upset and irritated about crazy policies or their pastor decide not to talk about it. But if a pastor comes to one of our meetings and gets a little bit embolden, we've just changed the whole narrative because we got people voting and engaged who weren't at all before.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:57):
Well, and there are things that are happening in society today that people feel like go against what they believe in their faith and they want to know when they go to church that somebody is addressing the biblical standard that they believe in. They don't necessarily have to take the political stance, but they have to know, yeah, you're not crazy. This is actually what the Bible says and your faith is based on a solid foundation here.
Chad Connelly (14:21):
One of my pastors in Pennsylvania said that very thing and he said, somebody came up and asked him about how these issues related to the Bible and he said, we've not gotten political. The political world started getting spiritual, therefore we had to start addressing this. I thought it was really good. Another pastor outside of Atlanta, Covington, Georgia, he came up to me after he heard me speak past a year or so when he said, Chad, I've been a two thirds pastor and I'm sorry. I said, pastor Billy, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. He said, God created three institutions, the family, the church and the state. I've been really focused on the church and the family. I've ignored the state no more. I'm going to be a three thirds pastor.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:59):
That was great. It is great. And the fact is, when you go through a year and a half ago, I did a gosh, I need to do it again. But I read the whole Bible in 90 days and I think it's really important to do that every once in a while. So you read the Bible more like you would read a novel. You're not doing deep study, you're just reading everything. But when you consume it that quickly, you realize the trends. The trends start jumping out at you because you hear the same story over and over and over, but in different times. And there are times in the Bible where there is a people and they do what God wants and their nation is prosperous, they have a good king and they have a good life. And then they stray from God's teachings and his rulings and his rules rather. And things start to fall apart and they wind up with a king who isn't good for them
Chad Connelly (15:59):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (15:59):
Then they come back together and do God's word and his rules again and things get better. But the point is there are kings throughout the entire Bible and there are two books of kings. And so that pastor is right. You have to pay attention to the church as well.
Chad Connelly (16:17):
It's so amazing. I did a one minute update this morning at a conference and in that one minute I was saying reading the Old Testament the other day about King Josiah, he was a godly man. He got rid of the high worship places, the Baal worship. Then all he did was scribe found the word and they read it and he tore his robes and oh my goodness, we have not been following God's word. So he realized all these prophets, warning, warning, warning, warning. He goes back and recenters Israel and recenters them to the word of God, the very next generation. His son goofed it up and reverted back to bad policies and they weren't blessed because of it. So you're exactly right, and I really think what's going on out there, society has decided, and progressives, leftists, whatever anti-biblical label it like you want to now that up is down and down is up. Isaiah five 20 tells us, whoa, one of them who called put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter and good for bad and bad for good and dark for light and light for dark. And we've been worn over and over and over again. I think we've been given a reprieve.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:19):
I
Chad Connelly (17:19):
Don't think it's about political stuff at all. I don't think it's about a president or I think it's about an entire society. They were trying to force people to call boys, girls and girls, boys, but they don't want to call a body of water. The body of water is still a body of water. But they argued, people went to the mat saying, well obviously this boy, if he feels like a girl is a girl and people are going, this is nonsense. And the same media types and progressives that wouldn't dare say Gulf of America, we're talking about this yesterday, the Gulf and the beautiful sunset. They were trying to convince us that this boy is actually a girl when no and normal people know that's nonsense. But when they start looking for, well who says it's nonsense, where's right and wrong come from? There is a standard, it's called the word of God. And we either believe it's a hundred percent accurate because 99.99 means it's inaccurate. It said us the word of God and we believe it's an erred, infallible. And so I believe it's given us the greatest opportunity to go back and tell people the truth. Pew research came out with a poll yesterday. For the first time in decades, the numbers of decline of people who identify as Christians has actually stopped and reversed first time in decades.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:30):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Chad Connelly (18:31):
It's amazing.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:32):
But it's because people
Chad Connelly (18:33):
Recognize truth.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:34):
Younger men are becoming more active in the church as well
Chad Connelly (18:38):
Than
Jenny Beth Martin (18:38):
Have been in recent young generations.
Chad Connelly (18:42):
It's so encouraging.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:43):
It is.
Chad Connelly (18:43):
We have a thing I'm working on this year directly to young pastors. I believe what we have to, and you and I talked about this when I was with you in December or something, is I think we've got to go at young pastors who might've been confused by the seminaries. They have a more of a pull toward, let's be popular because my friends are saying this. And yeah, I think that's a little bit whacked, but it is popular and people want to feel good and they respond to feelings instead of facts. So we're going right at pastors under 35 and we're trying to add them to our team in key states so they can talk to other young pastors. And it really has cut across denominational lines when you start building pastor relationships. I went to Flagstaff last fall. Flagstaff, it's not close to Phoenix, right? It's in the mountains. It's
Jenny Beth Martin (19:28):
Beautiful. It's two hours.
Chad Connelly (19:29):
It's up there,
Jenny Beth Martin (19:30):
Right? Heaven up there. Just a few. Were you really short while ago?
Chad Connelly (19:33):
Yes. Had 11 pastors at a Atlanta bread company or a Panera Bread kind of place. I can't remember what it's called. But anyway, one of my pastors in New Hampshire invited a pastor, A pastor in Iowa invited a different pastor from a cowboy church. The guy that was in New Hampshire invited an independent Baptist. There was a global Methodist church there. And so 11 guys and two of them said, Chad, where are you from? I said, South Carolina. He said, you flew 3000 miles to come introduce us to other pastors in our hometown. I've lived here forever. I said, that's what we do.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:05):
And
Chad Connelly (20:06):
I just think there's a big deal in giving them the encouragement that there are other people out there who believe like I do. I'm not alone.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:13):
And it doesn't matter the denomination at all. It's about these are people who are, they're leading their churches based on the word of God and knowing that there are other people who are doing the same thing. And Chad, you do something else that's very important. You take pastors to Israel and you really have a deep and abiding love for the Jewish people as well, don't you?
Chad Connelly (20:38):
I do. I always knew that we're supposed to. Genesis 12, three, blessed are those who bless Israel, curse those who curse. I knew that I didn't go the first time until 2013. I was state party chairman and I just like, wow, I wept. You weep through the whole trip. You're like, I can't believe this. This is amazing. We think of old in America. This is a 200 year old place. No, no, no, no. This is 4,000 years old and I'm going to my fifth trip in five weeks. I'm getting a handpicked 20 pastors. They're taking their wives. My buddy Joel Rosenberg, I found donors to do the in-state, the in nation stuff. I love it. And I don't know if you've been recently, but No, no, I have never been. Oh, you're going to go on one of my trips?
Jenny Beth Martin (21:23):
Yes. I need I I'll take
Chad Connelly (21:24):
You on a
Jenny Beth Martin (21:25):
Trip. Need to,
Chad Connelly (21:25):
There's a place called City David. I got to tell the story. Forgot
Jenny Beth Martin (21:28):
Minute. Yeah, please.
Chad Connelly (21:29):
So the first time I went, they said, Hey, there was a sewer line leak and we found what looks like steps down below us and it's right outside the south steps where Jesus would have walked right into the temple, so up to the temple mount. And so we literally leaned on our knee and looked into a hole, Jenny Beth. And those were like steps. The next time I went back was maybe 2015. And you actually could walk on those steps and they said, Hey, this looks like it's right between where we think the pool of asylum is, where they would've done the ritual washing three times a year to go to the temple and the temple steps, this is pretty important. I went back in 2022 with a group called apac and you could walk like a hundred yards. These are the steps. And so we were taking our shoes off because everybody tells you when you go to Israel, we can't promise you Jesus walked here. But even the Jewish guides were like, Jesus walked here.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:22):
Wow.
Chad Connelly (22:22):
He walked here. And so everybody's taking their shoes off chills. It
Jenny Beth Martin (22:24):
Does. It really does. It really does.
Chad Connelly (22:26):
And the last time we went, Dana and I took 20 pastors in August of 23, 5 weeks before the attacks and the pul asylums partially excavated. And I bet there's 2, 250 yards you walk. You can literally see the stones that are hu out where the shopkeepers would've sold turtle, doves and lambs for temple
Jenny Beth Martin (22:49):
Sacrifice.
Chad Connelly (22:50):
But the steps are way wider than you would've thought. And pottery has been found in coins. Roman sword was found. I mean it's amazing. And here's the key. It's like 30 feet below street level. The city of David is 30 feet below sea level or below the city level, the street level.
Jenny Beth Martin (23:09):
That's
Chad Connelly (23:10):
Amazing. So they've got it all structurally sound now and supported. But you can walk on this area and you come out in the broad daylight at the pool where Jesus healed. And it is just remarkable. In David's palace, they found marks of David's king, David's palace right there where he would've lived and rained. It's such a worthy trip. So yeah, I fell in love with the people. We fell in love with the places. You can't spend enough time there. So we're going April 1st for eight days and praying that things stay stable. We wanted to lean forward into it and say, look, people need to go back to Israel.
Jenny Beth Martin (23:49):
Well, they need people to be there.
Chad Connelly (23:51):
They do. It's horrible what's happened on our university campuses, the antisemitic efforts, the protests that we're giving tax money to. It's horrible. But even other nations that haven't supported Israel and here they are, this little nation the size of New Jersey. And when I was in the Army, I trained with Israelis. They're bad to the bone. I mean when I was in my tank, you've been in tanks before. I was blown out of a tank really. I mean I served with lieutenants. I was a new fresh lieutenant and I served with Israelis who had been in combat by that time. That was in the mid eighties. I got such a deep respect for Israel and God's word there and experiencing the land. Every Christian needs to go, I'm going to remember that. And you're going to go back.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:35):
Yes. Well, I would love to do that. I would love to do that.
Chad Connelly (24:38):
I'm going to do one a year.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:39):
Alright, that sounds good. So what else can we talk about and make sure that we've covered what you do and how people can be involved?
Chad Connelly (24:47):
We stumbled into this poll watching thing. We stumbled
Jenny Beth Martin (24:50):
Into it
Chad Connelly (24:52):
In 2021, and this is how it happened in January, 2021. I had a donor come to me and say, do you think what you're doing? It's very different than what I've seen done with pastor stuff. And he said, do you think it'll work in a blue state? I said, that's exactly where we ought to be doing this. And I'd done enough of the surveys. I hadn't spent a lot of money on it, but I'd done enough of the surveys to realize a lot of people sitting in churches are discouraged. And Virginia had become California east.
Chad Connelly (25:19):
Every wacko thing that you could imagine they were doing there. And the legislature still is what's governor y and vetoed like 200 bills or something. It is unbelievable. So we got involved in January. I had seven pastors, seven sat in a room at Regent University in January, 2021. And I said, we're going to hit this, we're going to see it. We can hit it. I taught some other donors into it. We spent a little bit of money there and I said, guys, and I looked at the numbers. There were 10 State House seats that had been won by far left east by less than three points, which has always kind of been my target. And we've always called our program run up the score. What if you just went in those areas and run up the score? And it wasn't a focus on the top race or the bottom race.
Chad Connelly (26:01):
It was kind of in the middle with the state house where you actually get a little bit of a benefit both directions. Too many people in the political world only focus on top of the ticket and there's such a drag as you know, go down ticket. So we focused on the state house. We didn't tell 'em who to vote for how to vote, but we went around. I said, I want you to find 25 churches in all 10 of these house districts and get 'em to do voter registration. Well, those 10 house districts actually had 312 churches that did voter registration. We measured 77,000 new Christians who registered. We never told 'em how to vote. We did voter guides, all C3 and do you know a guy named Youngin one by 65,300? He gave us a lot of credit, but I said, we didn't tell a single person who to vote for, but we did do things like common sense, parental rights, life marriage, Israel, religious liberties, things like that, board of security.
Chad Connelly (26:50):
We did all those things that we think tie right to the Bible. They're not political issues. They're spiritual ones that have been politicized. Well, then they started, the pastors got so fired up, well, what else can we do? Well, are you worried about election integrity? And they were like, well, yeah, we are. Well then let's recruit poll watchers. So we recruited over 1300 poll watchers in Virginia that certified and were placed. And I said, I want you to look for two things. People over a hundred years of age who voted because they could, right? But they need to be living. That should be a
Jenny Beth Martin (27:24):
Rule.
Chad Connelly (27:25):
It's
Jenny Beth Martin (27:25):
Pretty simple rule there. It's
Chad Connelly (27:26):
Pretty simple. If they're breathing, let 'em vote or more than six, register in the household. So Jean Beth, we literally got the early votes. They have 45 days of early voting in Virginia. So we literally sat around at Sunday school classrooms and fellowship halls and looked at voter rolls of the people who voted early. And I wrote a little three by five card I gave to pastors to go to the election offices. We're here to pray for you, here to pray with you. And by the way, that's public information. But we'd like the list of everybody who voted early Sinces last Friday night at midnight. Nobody does that. We called our program the Miss Bessie project. There's a little old lady named Miss Bessie probably weighed 90 pounds, soaking wet, 80 something years old. They were terrified of her because she didn't come from a party, didn't come from a committee, didn't come from a campaign from the church. And so one day they called me and said, Hey Chad, we found an address that had 17 people registered in the same household. What do you think? I said, I think that's a really big house. Why don't you run by there? It was a field, it was a no
Jenny Beth Martin (28:26):
House at all field,
Chad Connelly (28:27):
No structure at all. And that was the first election commissioner that the new attorney general arrested. Of course there were three that they caught for cheating all church people. Nobody saw 'em coming. Nobody knew where they came from. So we did that in seven states this year. And we found that a lot of people were registering to do stuff with voter integrity and poll watching online and nobody followed 'em up.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:49):
Yeah, it's sad, frustrating when that
Chad Connelly (28:51):
Happens. We didn't to put our numbers down, I told some people in a place in South Florida, you're going to get a lot of people sign up. We're going to actually follow 'em up and we're not even going to put 'em down until they're named. They're trained and they're slotted into a
Jenny Beth Martin (29:03):
Precinct. That's
Chad Connelly (29:04):
A big deal. And we register, we placed a little of 1,507 states from churches.
Jenny Beth Martin (29:09):
That's great. That's amazing. And it's important work. And it's very frustrating when a volunteer signs up and then they don't hear back. And it's frustrating to me sometimes when I'm trying to connect people in a state and they don't hear back. I'm like, come on, I'm bring you people who want to volunteer. Let's get it connected. But it's good that you're doing that.
Chad Connelly (29:31):
I just think Jean be the church is the answer. And we need to go back to the time when the church was culturally influential instead of being influenced by the culture. That's what's happened. And so if I can empower pastors and we call 'em church liaisons, I tell the pastor, I don't want to burden you. Who's the guy or the gal throwing stuff at the tv, they're so upset. Give me that person. And long as you put your stamp of approval on it, then disguise the limit. And our hope we exist to connect pastors and faith leaders to elected officials, candidates, political thought leaders, to not just maximize Christian votes but voices in the public arena. That's what we do.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:07):
And you do amazing work.
Chad Connelly (30:09):
Well, thank you.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:10):
Just
Chad Connelly (30:10):
Trying to follow people like you.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:11):
You're too sweet. You really do great work. And I hope that the people who are listening right now understand this is a way they can be involved either in their own church or to connect their pastor so that they can get their church community even more involved. And it's very important work. And now when people ask me that, I'm going to be able to give them the link to this podcast and go listen to this podcast and connect with Chad. So thank you very much, Chad. You're
Chad Connelly (30:36):
Awesome. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you, love you. Have so much respect for you.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:39):
Thank you.
Narrator (30:40):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (31:00):
If you like this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.