- Pastors for Trump never formally organized: Although announced as a nonprofit organization with a board of directors, the group was never incorporated and operated primarily as a political networking effort focused on evangelical turnout.
- Political climate favors fighters: Trump-era Republican politics reward the very traits that once made Jackson Lahmeyer a political outsider: combativeness, culture-war activism and unwavering loyalty to Trump.
- Dedicated followers: Lahmeyer’s supporters say they like his Christian values and loyalty to Trump.
In 2021, Jackson Lahmeyer stood in front of Tulsa’s City Council to push back on a proposed resolution to encourage mask-wearing as a coronavirus variant was spreading rapidly across the country. Mimicking Donald Trump’s cadence and hand gestures, he told the council he believed the resolution was merely a path to a future mask mandate.
“We’re not going to do it,” Lahmeyer said. “We didn’t comply last year, and you can mark my words, we will not comply this year. You can take it to the bank.”
He eventually signed religious “vaccine exemption” forms in exchange for donations to his church. At the time, he was challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford, who he called a “coward” for not supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Lahmeyer lost that race handily, receiving just 26% of the vote in the primary. But he’s back again this election year, running for Oklahoma’s open 1st Congressional District seat.
Like Trump, Lahmeyer loves a good fight.
The president “is someone who respects fighters because he is one,” Lahmeyer told The Frontier.
Lahmeyer was just 31 when he launched Pastors for Trump in 2022, an organization he said would “stress the importance of life, marriage, freedom of speech, and personal responsibility” and, just as importantly, help return Donald Trump to the White House in 2024.
The move helped the Tulsa pastor secure Trump’s endorsement for Congress, making him a frontrunner in a Republican primary where he is competing against nine other candidates.
“There’s a reason they call it the golden endorsement,” Lahmeyer said.
During a recent campaign appearance in a small room inside Jenks City Hall, with the Republican Women’s Club of South Tulsa, Lahmeyer repeatedly praised Trump allies known for public confrontation and political combat.
“That’s what Republicans had been desperately seeking for a long time,” Lahmeyer told the assembled crowd of about 50-60 women wearing American flag earrings and patriotic shirts.
Pastors For Trump
Around the time Pastors for Trump was founded, Trump was licking his wounds.
He’d been defeated in the 2020 election and then, on Jan. 6, 2021, as Joe Biden was being inaugurated, Trump urged supporters to “fight like hell,” leading to a chaotic scene as thousands descended on the U.S. Capitol.
While Pastors for Trump helped Trump make a comeback and grow Lahmeyer’s fame, the organization was never incorporated as a nonprofit, IRS records show. The board Lahmeyer initially announced was never formally created.
According to a 2023 article published by The Guardian, Lahmeyer said on Trump ally Roger Stone’s podcast Stone Zone that Pastors for Trump was an independent group from Trump’s campaign and was awaiting IRS approval as a 501(c)(4) social welfare group. The episode is no longer available online.
Stone, a longtime Republican strategist and self-described political “dirty trickster,” has close ties to Lahmeyer, who he has called Stone endorsed Lahmeyer in 2022 and described him as “someone of exceptional courage and integrity.” Federal election records from Lahmeyer’s failed 2022 Senate run show he paid over $181,000 to Stone’s lobbying and consulting firm Drake Ventures. The Federal Election Commission does not yet list Lahmeyer’s campaign expenditures for the 2026 election.
Media inquiries for Pastors for Trump were handled by Kristin Davis, the former New York escort-service operator once known publicly as the “Manhattan Madam.”
Pastors for Trump solicited donations on its website — text requesting contributions still exists on the site, though the donation link no longer functions.
Lahmeyer told The Frontier he “never raised any money” through the organization and instead personally paid for flights and travel while churches hosted events free of charge.
“We really didn’t need money for what we were doing,” Lahmeyer said. “We weren’t trying to run TV ads or radio ads. We were trying to meet directly with pastors.”
Craig Hagin, who was then co-pastor of Broken Arrow’s Rhema Bible Church, and the Rev. Mark Burns, a nationally known Trump ally, were announced as board members of the group in a December 2022 press release.
Hagin could not be reached for comment. He and his wife, Mia, were arrested earlier this year and charged with animal cruelty. The charge was later amended to disturbing the peace, records show. Mia Hagin pleaded no contest, paid a fine and was ordered to attend animal cruelty classes. She has since filed for divorce, saying on social media she “will no longer be anyone’s door mat.” Court records show Craig Hagin, who has since stepped down from his role at the church, is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing in July.
Burns, who is running for Congress in South Carolina and has also been endorsed by Trump, told The Frontier he served as more of an “adviser” for Pastors For Trump and said the organization’s goal was to “rally the Christian community for Trump.”
“We had to remind them to get out and vote for Trump,” Burns said. “Jackson is a great person and a great friend and he wanted to remind them (Trump) is the Christian president and to push the agendas that he had set.”
Burns was recently in the news for helping to unveil a 22-foot-tall golden statue of Trump at the president’s golf course in Doral, Florida.
Lahmeyer said Pastors for Trump eventually involved more than 10,000 pastors nationwide and focused heavily on swing states ahead of the 2024 election. Lahmeyer said he traveled city to city, meeting privately with influential pastors and encouraging them to mobilize their congregations.
The strategy, he said, was simple: convince evangelical Christians to vote.
“Most people who go to church respect their pastor and are influenced by their pastor,” Lahmeyer said during a May campaign appearance in Jenks. “We were confident if Christians would go vote and vote their values, you know who they could not vote for? The Democrat.”
Fight like hell
Lahmeyer’s plan to mobilize evangelicals for Trump seems to be working for himself too.
Weeks earlier, Oklahoma Republican Party Chair Charity Linch publicly endorsed Lahmeyer, breaking with a longstanding tradition of party neutrality in contested GOP races. The endorsement sparked backlash from some fellow Republicans, including former state Sen. Nathan Dahm and conservative activist A.J. Ferate, who accused Linch of improperly using her position to influence the race. Four former Oklahoma GOP chairs later publicly criticized the endorsement and called on Linch to either rescind it or resign.
Together, the endorsements allowed Lahmeyer to finally grasp what had eluded him during his first run for Congress: political legitimacy.
Trump’s sons have appeared repeatedly at Lahmeyer’s storefront church. And the Tulsa pastor had increasingly embedded himself inside Trump-aligned political and religious circles. Lahmeyer said his work through Pastors for Trump eventually led to roles with Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board and the White House Faith Office.
“My loyalty mattered,” Lahmeyer said. “My relationship with the president and the Trump family obviously mattered.”
When Lahmeyer first challenged Lankford in 2022, he attempted to stand out through grievance politics, culture war rhetoric and public combativeness. He called Lankford “the epitome of a RINO” and said the longtime Oklahoma congressman had betrayed Trump by voting to certify the results of the 2020 election.
Coverage from outlets including the Washington Post amplified his profile. Lahmeyer later joked he should probably subscribe to the newspaper because of the attention it generated.
He framed himself as a Christian dissident resisting government overreach, public health mandates and media attacks — themes that resonated deeply with parts of Oklahoma’s Republican base after the pandemic.
In 2021, Right Wing Watch documented Lahmeyer calling Black Lives Matter “demonic” and describing the movement as founded by “witchcraft-practicing lesbians.” National media outlets scrutinized his vaccine-exemption operation, including allegations that workers seeking exemptions were encouraged to become church members and financially support the ministry.
But rather than weaken Lahmeyer politically, many of those controversies strengthened his appeal among grassroots conservatives who increasingly viewed conflict with the media and political establishment — including some fellow Republicans — as proof of authenticity.
Lahmeyer, who only announced his latest congressional bid in March, has raised more than $350,000, including $60,000 he loaned himself, federal election data shows.
At his campaign stop in Jenks, attendees described Lahmeyer less as a politician than as a religious messenger carrying Trump-era evangelical politics into government. While there were other Republican politicians from the Tulsa area there that day, it was Lahmeyer whose speech had the crowd on a string.
Bernadette DiAntonio, of Tulsa, wore a Lahmeyer campaign T-shirt while volunteering to make phone calls on his behalf. She said Lahmeyer’s Christianity — and his willingness to openly discuss it — distinguished him from the rest of the field.
“I know he loves the Lord Jesus, and I know he will do right by who he represents,” DiAntonio said. “He loves the Lord, and this country has to give back to God, because we are under judgment, and that’s what Trump’s all about.”
Dee Dobson, of Sapulpa, said she first supported Lahmeyer in 2022 and continues backing him because of his work as a pastor and his role in Pastors for Trump.
“I like his Biblical view of the world,” Dobson said. “He’s a pastor, and all the work he’s put in getting Christians out to vote. That’s huge.”
In his speeches, Lahmeyer blends traditional conservative talking points with the populist and culture-war themes that have defined his political rise. He warns about Chinese ownership of Oklahoma farmland, denounces black market marijuana operations, attacks “Sharia law” and praises Trump’s immigration policies and evangelical outreach efforts.
“We are a nation under God,” he told the room in Jenks. “We’re not going to say, ‘Happy Holidays.” We’re going to say …”
“MERRY CHRISTMAS,” the room roared back.
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