The Power Worshippers

by Katherine Stewart

  Presidential candidates and their supporters—on all sides of the political spectrum—were at the time investing massive amounts of money in data operations in order to target potential voters. For the 2016 election cycle, for instance, the Mercer family, which initially supported Ted Cruz before throwing their weight behind Donald Trump, were behind the now-shuttered political data firm Cambridge Analytica, which claimed to have developed “psychographic” profiles that could identify personality and political leanings, and which could be used to sway voting behavior. The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, mega-funders of the economic right, also invested big money in data operations and “persuasion models” to advance Republican candidates, in part through a data organization called i360.14 And Democratic candidates were making use of their own data machines.

  How, Vickery wondered, would a group such as United in Purpose have amassed files on virtually the entire voting population of the United States—and what exactly were they doing with the data? He searched for links between UiP and other large-scale data-mining operations such as Cambridge Analytica, which developed their voter databases by scraping data from Facebook and other means, and AggregateIQ, which has been embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica controversy over misuse of data in politics.

  According to Fast Company, a smartphone app for the Ted Cruz campaign, Cruz Crew, was developed by AggregateIQ, the small Canadian data company that was the lead developer used by the data analytics consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Chris Wilson, founder and chief executive of the political marketing agency WPAi, which has been listed as the publisher of the Cruz Crew app, is a repeat guest on Tony Perkins’s Washington Watch radio program; on June 20, 2016, Wilson and Dallas were featured in contiguous segments.

  To be sure, the appearance of various data tools, methods, and individuals in close proximity in the hothouse world of political data operations does not mean that they are acting in coordination or violating the law. It could be that they are simply working independently toward a common goal. The real significance of Vickery’s discovery was the number of voters about whom United in Purpose had collected information. UiP was in a position to select the targets for its messaging from almost the entire voting-age population of the United States.

  Bill Dallas has not been shy in describing the massive reach of his data operation. “We have about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database,” Dallas said in a September 5, 2016, interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “What we do is we track to see what’s going to make somebody either vote one way, or not vote at all.”15 Other outlets, including Forbes, picked up on the stunning facts.16

  So where did United in Purpose acquire information on pretty close to the entire voting age population? The answer is a bit of a mystery. UiP claims to buy lists and solicits Americans to fill in their own information through a variety of tools, including iVoterGuide. But one has to wonder what percentage of 180 million Americans would voluntarily sign over their data to a little-known company.

  United in Purpose was just one of several entities on the right with access to comprehensive voter data. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, by November 2018 the Koch brothers–funded i360 had developed detailed “personality profiles” on 89 percent of the U.S. population and were microtargeting messages in ways that “revolutionized political communications.”17

  Data Trust, a private consultancy long used by the Republican National Committee, is another repository of voter data. According to UpGuard, the firm where Vickery presently serves as director of cyber risk research, a 2017 data breach, also discovered by Vickery, led to the personal information of “potentially near all of America’s 200 million registered voters” and linked to “a publicly accessible cloud server owned by Republican data firm Deep Root Analytics.”18 Within the Deep Root Analytics database, according to UpGuard, “the folder ‘data-trust’ appears to contain nothing less than the full fruits of this RNC/Data Trust effort to house as comprehensive and detailed a repository of potential 2016 voter information.” (As soon as Deep Root Analytics was made aware of the breach, they took action to secure the database.)

  The utility of data, of course, consists in the ability to interact selectively and individually with voters. United in Purpose begins by assigning points to each individual in its database for characteristics that line up with conservative religious voting patterns. Individuals receive points if they are members of conservative churches or if they homeschool their children. They also get points if they appear to oppose marriage equality or abortion rights. They get additional points for certain interests or hobbies, such as hunting, fishing, or following NASCAR.

  “If [your score] totaled over 600 points, then we realized you were very serious about your faith,” Dallas explains.19

  United in Purpose’s first mission is to make sure that all 600-pointers are registered to vote. “We run that person against the voter registration database … If they were not registered, that became one of the key people we were going to target to go after,” Dallas says.

  For the 2012 election cycle, United in Purpose aimed to register 5 million conservative Christians—a number that Dallas believed could decide the presidency. In 2008, as he has pointed out, key states such as Florida, North Carolina, and Missouri were decided by slim margins. Registering conservative Christians could make a difference.

  In order to persuade unregistered conservative Christians to register and vote, United in Purpose pursues various on- and off-line strategies. With a ready army of volunteers, many recruited from conservative churches by representatives of organizations such as the Family Research Council, UiP offers tools for making phone calls and knocking on doors.

  According to a 2012 article in NPR, such volunteers were called “champions.” Scott Spages, an evangelical activist from Davie, Florida, was recruited to the cause when a representative of the Family Research Council came to his church seeking volunteers.

  “God says that when the righteous rule, the people rejoice, and when the wicked rule, the people groan,” Spages said. “So as Christian[s], we are specifically called upon by the Bible and by God to raise up our leaders.”20

  The article follows Spages as he logs into a United in Purpose website allowing him access to information on unregistered conservative Christian voters in his area. The site offers Spages multiple ways to contact each voter, including phone numbers, email, and physical addresses, as well as a persuasive script so that he knows just what to say.

  Another activist featured in the piece, Kay Clymer, an evangelical Tea Partier from Zanesville, Ohio, uses the data she gets from United in Purpose’s Champion the Vote initiative to connect with like-minded believers. In addition to door-to-door canvassing, she spends several hours on the phone each day.

  “I pray for a Red Sea experience like he did with the Egyptians—and then wash those people out that don’t belong in office,” she said. “And that’s what keeps me going.”

  In advance of the 2016 election, Christian nationalist leaders stepped up their ground game. At his Road to Majority conference that year, Ralph Reed told the crowd about the force his group would bring to bear on the upcoming presidential race. “We will distribute 35 million nonpartisan voter guides to 117,000 thousand churches and houses of worship across this country,” he vowed. “We will make 15 million phone calls from phone banks and volunteer centers. We will send out 20 million emails and texts to seven million voters of faith in battleground states … and, if they haven’t turned in their vote by 4 P.M. that day … we’re going to go to their house by car or van and knock on their doors.” At the conference, Trump promised to uphold his part of the bargain, brandishing a list of potential Supreme Court appointees as though he were selling shiny new bonds for a casino development. “These judges are all pro-life!” he said.

  All major political operations—of all parties—now rely on big data and activist networks to sharpen thei
r effectiveness in election campaigns. Obama’s successes in the 2008 and 2012 elections have been attributed in part to his superior data strategy. One key difference, however, is that United in Purpose’s voter turnout machine is at the top of a long pyramid that largely operates in the religious sphere, almost all of which is exempt from taxes and shielded from public scrutiny.

  Data gathering and operationalizing isn’t cheap, of course. A 2011 article on United in Purpose published in the Los Angeles Times reported UiP’s annual budget “in the millions of dollars.”21 Where does UiP get its money and other forms of support?

  One source of support, no doubt, is United in Purpose chairman of the board Ken Eldred. Eldred was the cofounder and CEO of Inmac, the first company to sell computer-related products and accessories through direct-mail catalogs. The company expanded to multiple overseas markets, and by the time it was sold in 1996, it had an annual revenue of over $400 million. Eldred also founded several businesses, including the software company Ariba Technologies, and “advises various Kingdom business ventures and ministries,” according to his biography.22 He is the author of several faith-based business titles, including God Is at Work: Transforming People and Nations Through Business. Eldred has donated generously to GOP campaigns, including those of Rick Perry and the disgraced former Alabama hopeful Roy Moore. At a breakfast hosted by UiP at the 2018 Values Voter Summit, Eldred said the upcoming midterm elections were about “judges, judges, judges” before leading the audience in prayer that “the Lord Jesus Christ would be the King of America once again.”

  According to United in Purpose’s form 990s, their biggest funder by far is a single individual: Major General Vernon B. Lewis Jr., who lives in Marshall, Texas. Lewis led a distinguished military career in the Army and, when he retired in 1977, founded two businesses. The first was a military training and education company called Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) that conducted military operations, intelligence analysis, and cyber operations; in 2014 the company agreed to pay a $3.2 million fine to resolve allegations of false labor charges on a contract to support the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.23 Lewis’s other company, Cypress International, describes itself as a consultancy specializing in support to the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal government agencies. The company claims to have “a deep understanding of business opportunities in the defense and homeland security sectors.”24

  Lewis also founded a conservative Texas online publication, the Lone Star Eagle, which offers syndicated content from Breitbart News Network and the Daily Caller. And his contributions in the political arena seem to extend beyond United in Purpose. His name appeared at the top of the sponsor’s page for the Faith, Family, and Freedom Gala Dinner for the 2019 Values Voters Summit. At the dinner, Trump delivered a lengthy address with the customary mix of falsehoods, boasting, and invective, and he was received with multiple standing ovations.

  In addition to attending several of Dallas’s presentations at Values Voter summits and other events, I caught some of Dallas’s appearances on a variety of Christian TV networks in the 2016 election cycle. In these interviews he revealed quite a bit about his role in the election.

  On March 7, 2016, Dallas and Eldred appeared with Marcus and Joni Lamb on Daystar Television, a Christian broadcasting network, to deliver a clear message to viewers: Vote—the “right” way. As Eldred said, “It’s not just voting. It’s voting their principles. Their Christian principles.”25

  Lamb cut straight to those Christian principles. “Recently same-sex marriage became the law of the land,” he said, knitting his fulsome eyebrows. “And principally it happened because Christians didn’t vote in the presidential election, and Supreme Court justices who were very liberal were appointed to the bench. And they were the deciding votes and that becoming the law of the land, something that people thought would never ever happen. It’s interesting that both Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, when they were running for president in 2008, both were against same-sex marriage but then they changed.”

  Turning to Dallas, Marcus repeated, “So, Bill, can it be reversed if we got the right kind of justices on [the Supreme Court]?”

  Dallas was the practical one, the guy with the numbers and a plan. “Ninety million Christians, okay, and 39 million don’t get involved,” he said. “If they got involved, eventually the fragrance of this country would have a Christ-like fragrance. Which we all know we want; we just need to get involved. We’re a sleeping giant. Christians are a sleeping giant. Let’s get now involved in the process for cultural change!”

  “What can churches do?” Marcus asked.

  “They can go to championthevote.com,” Dallas said. “We’ll help the pastor determine who is registered or not registered in their congregation.” Referring to United in Purpose’s special toolkit for pastors, which he called “Pledge 75” tools, Dallas said, “We provide what we call ‘turn-key’—or, like I make my brownies, ‘just add water’—tools. Contact us! We have a ministry consultant who will work with each church to help them get their people out to vote on election day.”

  Smiling broadly, Marcus said, “This is something every church should be willing to get involved in. The way they do it is not partisan. They don’t say, ‘Vote Republican’ or ‘Vote Democrat,’ or vote for this man or this woman; it’s nothing like that at all. They’re just saying, ‘Christians, vote!’ Then they trust the Lord and the Holy Spirit and their people that they’ll then make the right choice.”

  “When we sit back and let the culture take over, it doesn’t smell like us,” Dallas said. “It doesn’t smell with the biblical values.”

  By the half-hour mark, Lamb was in full persecution mode. “Let me say this, and this is going to be shocking for some of y’all … You know what’s going to eventually happen in America if Christians don’t vote and we don’t get involved in the process? And the liberal groups see that they can just run roughshod over us? … There’ll come a time when Christian television will be outlawed. There’ll come a time that if a minister stands up and preaches the word of God against sin, it’ll be considered hate crimes. And hate speech. And they will be arrested and thrown in prison just like in countries like Iran!”26

  By now United in Purpose was embedded in the nexus of Christian nationalist power. The organization’s voter registration and education initiative Champion the Vote was partnered with a number of other organizations, including the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, David Barton’s Black Robe Regiment and WallBuilders, Students for Life, and more than a dozen others. Champion the Vote also linked online to Awake 88, the initiative described by Pastor J. C. Church in Unionville, North Carolina, and an initiative of Family Research Council.

  United in Purpose’s pastor-focused initiative, Project 75, aimed at “Mobilizing 75% of church members to VOTE.” The program featured a Church Voter Lookup Tool, “the key to measuring your success in the Project 75 campaign.”27 Text on the Project 75 website advised that this tool “works exactly like the individual voter lookup below, but instead of looking up individuals one at a time, we run your church database all at once. You’ll then receive a report that tells you what percentage of your congregation is registered to vote and what percentage actually voted in the last election! After each election, we provide you with a follow up report that shows the progress you’re making.” Other Project 75 offerings included an Individual Voter Lookup Tool, which might come in handy should a pastor care to see how a specific member of his congregation cast their vote. Project 75 also offered tools to facilitate voter registration drives at churches.

  Project 75 was closely allied with another initiative called Let’s Vote America. “Let’s Vote America is a campaign of United in Purpose,” according to archived website material, and “also works hand in hand with Project 75.” Prior to the 2016 election, UiP also hosted faith-focused “presidential forums” in battleground states such as Iowa, partnering with the National Org
anization for Marriage, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Action Fund, among others.

  United in Purpose was now at the epicenter of a dense web of faith-based initiatives aimed at turning out conservative Christians for Trump/Pence. While each initiative had its own unique characteristics, they operated hand in glove as components of the sprawling Christian nationalist machine. The religious right is not a single organization, and yet it is surprisingly well organized in a certain sense. It may be perceived as a grassroots movement, not answering in a formal way to a command-and-control hierarchy. But it is the big-picture strategists who are, to a largely underappreciated degree, acting as its architects and engineers.

  In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Dallas followed the rest of the movement in doubling down on support for Trump, appearing on Andrew Wommack’s Truth & Liberty Coalition broadcast on August 27 to discuss the Trump Russia scandal.

  “Christians, we don’t have the right to sit back and not engage. We have a duty and a responsibility,” said Dallas. “It is so important how we lay the foundation of judges, both at the Supreme Court level and at the federal levels, so that we get the right judges in place.” Referring to a Christian nationalist voter awareness event in the works for the following month, which would be taking place at Wommack’s Charis Bible College and broadcast live all across the U.S., Dallas said, “This is the Super Bowl where Christians are going to gather in our country.”28

  Wommack assured him that he was prepared to host the event. “I’m going to be talking about Christians have a responsibility to get involved,” Wommack said. Discussion immediately pivoted to the Founding Fathers and how Christianity built America. “I’ve been doing a lot of research lately,” Wommack began to explain, “through David Barton …”

  At some point in 2018 the website for United in Purpose was scrubbed. Previously it had offered a window into the organization’s three separate components: the first, the American Culture and Faith Institute, focused on polling and research and headed by George Barna; a second focused around Dallas’s Church Communication Network; and a third aimed at data. But much of the site was dismantled; all that remained was a splash page. Around this time United in Purpose filed a lawsuit against its data firm Trendmojo, Inc., in San Mateo County. The complaint asserted that the firm and its founder “are thieves” who have “embezzled and stolen millions of dollars from the Nonprofit Plaintiffs.” But the lawsuit was dismissed after just sixteen days at the request of the plaintiffs.29