“I’ll tell you another (group) that don’t vote, I love these people, evangelical Christians,” Trump, the Republican party’s presidential candidate, said at a rally on October 6.“If (evangelicals) did vote, we couldn’t lose an election.”However, in the run up to the high-stakes election, where Trump seeks a second term, he isn't the only one courting evangelicals. The mostly conservative group has for months been a focus of Ukrainian lobbying efforts seeking to expand and cement Republican support for Ukraine.The hope is that by exposing Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine as one that involves Moscow persecuting and killing Christians, including evangelicals, Americans in Trump’s MAGA movement — specifically the influential religious right — could shift their position toward supporting Ukraine.Instead of echoing Trump in questioning American support for Ukraine in its existential fight for survival, efforts underway aim to convert them to a pro-Ukrainian stance — reaching out to help Ukraine as the victim, not Russia as the aggressor.US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on July 23, 2024.