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The Role of Ideologically Extreme Candidates in U.S. Congressional Elections

Sean Feucht, a Christian worship artist in the Bethel Church movement, is running for the U.S. House of Representatives Third District in California in the 2020 election. North of San Francisco, the district is currently represented by moderate Democrat John Garamendi. Garamendi served 16 years in the California Legislature and has been serving in the U.S. House since 2009. As of September 30, 2019, there are 14 House Republicans and three House Democrats not running for re-election in 2020. There are currently six U.S. House members running for different offices, including the U.S. Senate, supervisory boards and governorships (Killough, Foran and Byrd 2019). Sean Feutch is an interesting case of an ideologically extreme candidate challenging an incumbent of the opposite party at a time when Congress is becoming more politically polarized than ever.

The Bethel Church, of which Feucht belongs, is a nondenominational and controversial church based in Redding, California. With global reach, the Church has its own music publishing and record label. It has been associated with incredibly socially conservative movements, such as the “ex-gay” campaign. Alan Chambers, head of Exodus International, announced Exodus was closing in 2013. Exodus was a Christian ministry organization focused on gay conversion: Chambers once declared that homosexuality was “one of the many evils this world has to offer” (Merritt 2019). After Exodus shut down, Bethel Church continued its message by lobbying against marriage equality, touting the #OnceGay hashtag, and persisting with the slogan “We Believe: Changed is Possible”, referring to people who once identified as LGBTQ+ (Merritt 2019). Candidate Feutch, who performs with Bethel Music, hopes to extend his religious progress and bring his socially conservative values to politics: he confidently states that “family values are being eroded, the unborn are sacrificed, morals are low, and taxes are high” (“Sean Feutch for Congress”). A business owner who has authored five books and founded three non-profits, Feutch’s position is “hope, inspiration, and change before it’s too late”.

Ideologically extreme candidates who hold deeply traditional socially convervative values make society question the limits to which religion and government should be entangled. White Christian nationalist David Lane has embraced Feucht’s Congressional run: “For spiritual resurrection in America to become possible, Sean and Millennials and Generation Z’s like him will have no other choice than to return American Christendom to the ekklesia model.” Lane, who is against same-sex marriage, explains the ekklesia model as one in which the church is the governing body in “God’s world”. Deep government entanglement with religion is what the Founding Fathers attempted to guard against with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Some extremely partisan candidates therefore face an uphill battle in congressional elections due to their devout religious convictions. Stanford University professor Andrew Hall adds to this point, explaining that nominating extreme candidates makes the party significantly more likely to lose the current and future general elections: “Overall...the nomination of more extreme candidates causes severe damage to the party’s electoral prospects...[If a] Democrat is nominated, the district’s roll-call voting in the next Congress becomes more conservative, and vice versa when a more extreme Republican is nominated” (2015). Using Hall’s logic, Sean Feutch should face quite a struggle in 2020, as he is an extreme candidate challenging a moderate incumbent, and voters tend to choose moderate candidates in general elections. However, the partisan divide between both Democrats and Republicans seems to be widening. Figure 1, created by a group of researchers for a peer-reviewed scientific journal, demonstrates the political polarization of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1949, measuring how likely each representative was to vote with their own party. This pattern of increasing polarization may help explain why extreme candidates are winning.
Especially in recent elections, incumbents have been suffering and extreme candidates have been pulling off victories. In 2014, incumbent Eric Cantor suffered a loss at the hands of Tea Party-backed David Brat in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District (Adler, Jenkins and Shipan 2019). As seen in Figure 2, this election result is just one of the many examples of ideologically extreme candidates being swept into office due to increased polarized waves and Republicans shifting farther to the right and Democrats shifting farther to the left.
The 2020 races will also contain extremes within the Democratic Party. This past year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found herself constantly challenging the moderate approach of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez participated in protests outside of Pelosi’s office, and in return Pelosi argued that districts like AOC’s “could be won by a glass of water” running as a Democrat (Green 2019). A divide within the leftist ideology can be witnessed in Texas’s 28th Congressional District. Henry Cuellar has been representing this U.S. House district since 2005, but again faces strong opposition from far-left Democrats. A progressive group that supported Ocasio-Cortez, the Justice Democrats, announced they are attempting to oust Cuellar in favor of human rights attorney Jesscia Cisneros. Cisneros explains in her launch video, “Our congressman claims to be a Democrat, but he’s voted with Trump nearly 70 percent of the time...He’s Trump’s favorite Democrat...[and] voted to defund sanctuary cities and reproductive services for women’s health” (Nilsen 2019). Cuellar, a very moderate Democrat, has received A ratings from the NRA and continually sees donations from oil and gas companies, the Koch brothers and private prisons. The 28th District of Texas will very likely remain represented by a Democrat, but how ideologically extreme a Democrat remains to be seen.

There are no obvious resolutions to the challenges that extreme candidates pose, nor to the intraparty disputes created by extreme ideologies. The Democratic Party should attempt to focus more on party unification, common ground and energizing its base for the 2020 elections in order to secure more seats in Congress. According to Andrew Hall’s logic, Republicans should consider supporting someone other than Sean Feutch, as he is more likely to lose in the contested race as such an extreme candidate compared to a moderate Republican. Though it is highly unlikely, the DCCC and NRCC should consider only supporting candidates who advocate for secular politics. Separation between religion and government remains paramount to values of democracy. Perhaps more resolutions can be made to study the attractiveness of ideologically extreme candidates in today’s climate and, after the 2020 elections, why voters did or did not support them.
Works Cited
Adler, E. Scott, Jeffery A. Jenkins, and Charles R. Shipan. 2019. The United States Congress. New York: W.W. Norton & Company (October 4, 2019).
Doherty, Carroll. 2014. “Which Party Is More to Blame for Political Polarization? It Depends on the Measure.” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/17/which-party-is-more-to-blame-for-political-polarization-it-depends-on-the-measure/ (October 4, 2019).
Green, Matthew N. 2019. “Evaluating the Pelosi Speakership.” Mischiefs of Faction. https://www.mischiefsoffaction.com/post/evaluating-pelosi-speakership (October 4, 2019).
Hall, Andrew B. 2015. “What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?” American Political Science Review109(1): 18–42. https://www.cambridge.org (October 4, 2019).
Ingraham, Christopher. 2015. “A Stunning Visualization of Our Divided Congress.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/ (October 5, 2019).
Killough, Ashley, Clare Foran, and Haley Byrd. 2019. “Here Are the Lawmakers Who Are Not Seeking Reelection to Congress in 2020.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/01/politics/congress-retirements-2020/index.html (October 4, 2019).
Merritt, Jonathan. 2019. “The Ex-Gay Christianity Movement Is Making a Quiet Comeback. The Effects on LGBTQ Youth Could Be Devastating.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/09/06/ex-gay-christianity-movement-is-making-quiet-comeback-effects-lgbtq-youth-could-be-devastating/ (October 4, 2019).
Nilsen, Ella. 2019. “Justice Democrats Have a Primary Challenger for Rep. Henry Cuellar - Their Top Target.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/13/18663332/justice-democrats-henry-cuellar-primary (October 5, 2019).
“Sean Feutch for Congress.” Sean For Us. https://seanforus.com/ (October 5, 2019).

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