(RNS) — Kellianne Clarke doesn’t really have time for an interview.

An active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation in Chester County, Pennsylvania, she spoke to RNS earlier this month while preparing a lesson she planned to teach to her church’s women’s group on Sunday next. A mother of four with a master’s degree in strategic communication and regularly serving on various nonprofit boards, Clarke also helps lead the local chapter of Relief Society, the national women’s group of the LDS church. All of that, along with her long history with the church, means she’s in constant conversation with her fellow Mormons.

But there’s one thing she hasn’t really talked about with her faith community: her plans to vote for Democrat Kamala Harris.

“I generally don’t talk politics with people in my local congregation, mostly because I think I’m generally an outsider,” said Clarke, a graduate of Brigham Young University, the LDS church’s flagship university. She describes herself as a “liberal mom” — but only in the religious sense, compared to other Mormons.

“People tolerate it, but they don’t really want to talk about it,” she said.

Talkative or not, the Harris campaign is hoping women like Clarke will make their voices heard at the ballot box on Tuesday (November 5). In addition to raising awareness to Black Protestants, Hispanic Christians and many other groups, Democrats are betting big that a subset of conservative women — especially white, religious suburban women who have traditionally voted Republican — will support Harris this year for a constellation of reasons, whether it’s about questions about former President Donald Trump’s character and dedication to democracy or concerns about winning women’s rights.

For Clarke, the choice was clear a long time ago. As a registered independent, she typically splits the ballot, splitting support between Democrats and Republicans. But in the past few election cycles, she has voted for Democratic presidential candidates, largely because of her ambivalence about Trump.

“My vote for Kamala is because I think she believes in the common good and I think Donald Trump believes in himself and is selfish,” she said. Trump is “all about craziness and picking up only the people he thinks are good enough to be with him, rather than the community that binds us all together.”

Nancy French speaks on a panel during the RNS 90th Anniversary Symposium and Gala Sept. 10, 2024, in New York City. (RNS photo/Kit Doyle)

Concerns about Trump’s character and conduct are also on the mind of prominent evangelical Christian author Nancy French, who announced on RNS The “Saved by the City” Podcast. this month when he plans to support Harris.

In a separate interview with RNS, French, who said he did not vote for any of the party’s major candidates in 2016, cited Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as one of several reasons to oppose him.

“Jan. 6 changed the political dynamic for me,” she said, adding that she had long ago decided never to vote for an “election negative.”

“The presidency qualifies as an important office that must be filled by someone who appreciates the value of democracy and actually preserves it. That’s why I’m voting for Harris,” said French, the author of this year’s “Ghosted: An American Story.”

Going public about her vote, French said, is an intimidating prospect. She recounted the fierce backlash she and her husband, New York Times columnist David French, experienced over their criticism of Trump. “If you could live my life and David’s life, you would want nothing to do with Trump,” she said.

Even friendly conversations can descend into political debates. French recalled how a pickleball opponent recently sent him a video from his pastor as a conversation starter about whether Democrats belong to a “satanic death cult.”

“It’s very hard to say that out loud because the Christian pressure in white evangelical churches to support Donald Trump is very, very strong,” she said, referring to her support for Harris. “A lot of people don’t want to face the battle of being perceived as a liberal or a Democrat.”

These tensions make it difficult to trace any shift toward Harris among white conservative women. There is evidence that Harris has made gains among white women in general: A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday, showed Trump and Harris splitting the white female vote 46 percent to 44 percent, a marked improvement from 2020, when they favored Trump over Joe Biden by 16 points. But there is suspicion that some conservative white women who historically vote Republican would not admit Harris’ support to pollsters or campaign staff.

That hasn’t stopped the Harris campaign from launching strong efforts to court the group, including a series of events with Vice President and former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a swing Republican and United Methodist who, as a congresswoman from Wyoming, led a chamber. investigation into the Jan. 6 riot and has been strongly critical of Trump.

rev. Jennifer Butler. (Photo by David F. Choy)

“I think we have an opportunity there to specifically engage evangelical women in this conversation,” said the Rev. Jennifer Butler, a Presbyterian pastor, shortly after becoming the director of faith outreach for the Harris campaign in August.

“We’ve seen a lot of evangelical women come our way who want us to join a common cause, to support women and families,” Butler continued. “I think I see the hypocrisy and the Republican approach … to put women and doctors in prison, to be very punitive. This kind of criminalization of abortion actually does not create the conditions for strong family life (or) for the protection of women and strong families.”

The Harris campaign unveiled a new effort in early October for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona, and an initiative by the group Evangelicals for Harris, which operates separately from the campaign, has called specifically for conservative Christian women.

Another group, Vote Common Good, led by progressive evangelical pastor Doug Pagitt, released two new digital ads this week featuring voiceovers by actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts. In of latewomen wearing patriotic clothing are shown voting for Harris in polling booths, in apparent defiance of a man in a bald eagle hat, who later asks if they “made the right choice”. The ad, which organizers say they hope will air on cable networks, ends with Roberts saying, “Remember: What happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”

The ad is aimed at a dynamic person who said Clarke has an impact on many women navigating patriarchal pressures.

“I think a lot of it is based on fear,” she said. “They don’t talk because they’re afraid of whatever the punishment is from a husband, from a lover, from a neighbor, from the workplace.”

But while some may not be public about their politics, Clarke said conservative religious women sometimes reveal their support for Harris in private moments. Clarke was surprised to hear from several religious women in her hotly contested county — Mormons and members of other religious traditions such as Catholicism, she said — who told her they planned to support Harris as well.

“They told me it’s about character leadership and servant leadership rather than a strictly party and religious kind of accountability,” Clarke said.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Additionally, Clarke noted that some conservative women may be drawn to Harris for reasons not entirely different from traditional liberal voters, such as their desire to take a stand in favor of abortion rights. Clarke became emotional as she described how she “had to experience health care for an unbearable pregnancy,” which had a profound impact on her.

“My view of, shall we say, abortion has become more compassionate, empathetic and generous,” she said.

French said she would be “pleasantly surprised” if a group of conservative religious women broke for Harris, but that in Tennessee, where she lives, “almost every person I meet supports Trump.”

“I’m pretty disheartened by the whole thing, to be honest,” she said.

Clarke was more optimistic, saying she wouldn’t be surprised if “women come out in bigger numbers than expected for Kamala Harris,” noting that “women tend to rally around other women.”

“I think there’s a lot of fear about what Donald Trump could and would do in terms of women, women’s rights, women’s bodily autonomy, just what he would do for women in general,” she said.

Clarke, herself one of eight children, has two sisters who live in the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina. She said they plan to vote for Harris, too, and like Clarke, they’re busy: They’re currently working to convince their parents — who just moved to North Carolina — to join them in voting for the Democrat .

“I was in a full court press,” she said. “We’re like, ‘Don’t follow your tradition of voting for Republican candidates.’