Call it prophecy, call it prayer, call it blind faith. All of these and more sprinkle the call to vote that Christian Nationalist leaders have hard-pitched to Christian evangelical voters, citing November 5th as a stepping stone to their collective end times vision of a future Christian American nation. That call has produced Project 19, a right-wing political advocacy effort that aims to find 10,000 votes among evangelical Christian voters in four swing states. Project 19 is led by Christian nationalist members of the fast-growing Pentecostal offshoot New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), many of whom are also involved in Project 2025.

Project 19 is being implemented in swing states by various parties, including former Trump official General Mike Flynn, with known GOP officials including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In June, Flynn embarked on a four-swing state, get-out-the-vote, evangelical Courage Tour with a first stop in Michigan. It represents an updated, cash-flush version of Flynn’s 2022 Reawaken America Tour, and here, Project 19 is the centerpiece to a recruitment drive, including of Latino pastors.

Flynn has teamed up with an array of NAR “living apostles” and self-dubbed prophets to help call true believers to engage in door-to-door neighborhood voter canvassing, using a special app that provides them with voter data to identify and reach Christians. NAR leaders include Texas businessman-cum-Apostle Lance Wallnau, Mario Murillo, and Trump’s “spiritual advisor” Paula Cain-White, head of the Center for American Values at the America First Policy Institute, a policy think tank that funds Christian right advocacy (see box AFPI). Cain-White is also a member of an AFPI-affiliated National Faith Advisory Board. America First Works is a tour partner.

Before the opening of the Republic National Convention in July, Cain-White convened a big prayer circle for Trump, whom NAR members view as a King Cyrus figure – a flawed man who was nevertheless chosen to lead. NAR members are equally excited about JD Vance, who headlined the Pennsylvania Courage Tour stop in suburban Monroe, not far from Pittsburgh. Vance is open about his embrace of Christian nationalism.

Other tour speakers have included longtime anti-gay advocate Prophet Lou Engle; NAR rising stars Apostles Mario Bramnick and Jenny Donnelly; and Floyd Brown, founder of the Western Journal. They include non-white NAR members such as Herman Martir, president of the Asian Action Network in Texas, and Apostle Mario Bramnic, president of the Latino Coalition for Israel and a messianic end-times Jew. Along with Latinos, religious Jews are viewed as critical target voters by Project 19 organizers; so are libertarians. At a recent Trump rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, speakers complained that too many Christians and gun owners were not voting; if they did, conservatives would surely win there. That same complaint has been a refrain on the Courage Tour. 

“Apostle Wallnau's Courage Tour is not just a tent revival road show,” explained Fred Clarkson, a journalist and right-wing monitor at Political Research Associates who has been monitoring Project 19, along with Ann Nelson. (Clarkson recently discussed Project 19 and the NAR’s political goals on Stop The Coup 2025’s Revisioning Democracy podcast). The audience prays and sways to Christian rock, and Apostle Wallner lays his hands on tour attendees for miracles to occur, but the NAR-led tour remains, at heart, a sophisticated, well-funded political campaign. Participants are provided with voter talking points, canvassing materials, and ways to help out. The Latino pastors are trained and given outreach targets. And, as Clarkson noted, “the outreach is not limited to those nineteen counties.”

Big money is also flowing. Project 19 is backed by right-wing PAC money, including from Turning Point USA, a Project 2025 advisory group led by another virulent anti-gay activist, Charlie Kirk, and by American Policy Work, the political arm of the APLI; APLI was founded with a one-million-dollar grant from Trump’s Save America PAC. Wallnau is also closely linked with the conservative Council for National Policy. The CNP serves as a hub and bridge to funnel donor dark money to PACs, and CNP members have jumped onto the Project 19 train.

For his part, Wallnau remains a man with a mission, a living apostle intent on delivering ballots for Trump. Back in 2015, Wallnau talked to candidate Trump about the importance of courting the Christian vote, laying out the vision for Project 19: “The thing we need to do more than anything is to find a way of taking these 10,000 spokes and connect them into a hub of some sort so that there is a unified voice. Our people here need to work together.”  

“It’s hard to tell how successful they’re being,” said Clarkson, reflecting on Project 19’s success in early October. But he noted that around 2,500 people had turned up at several Courage Tour stops. “While not every true believer may respond,” as Clarkson noted, “if the people you are bringing in are people you’re trying to turn into activists, well, that’s something.”

— ACD