WASHINGTON — Conservative leaders, increasingly worried about a challenging 2018 campaign, are intensifying their appeals to evangelical voters frustrated with Washington, warning that failure to support Republican lawmakers in November will imperil Donald Trump and his agenda.

In churches and email solicitations, through voter guides and major conferences, organizations that target Christian conservative voters plan to argue at every turn that the success of Trump’s presidency – and potentially, its existence – is on the line this year.

“The GOP’s only hope is the president,” said Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council, which is active in 15,000 churches across the country.

It’s part of a broader effort to transform Trump’s popularity with the base into votes for Republicans those voters have come to distrust. Indeed, the move to court these core voters comes as leaders of the conservative movement worry about an evangelical enthusiasm gap fueled by a belief among activists that Congress isn’t going far enough in enacting their priorities.

IMPEACHMENT ISSUE

To focus voters’ attention on the midterms – and to stop irritation from becoming apathy following the Republicans’ failure to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare – officials are turning to increasingly dramatic measures.

Some are discussing putting the issue of impeachment on their issue-based voter guides, a stark reminder of the potential consequences of a Democratic-controlled Congress. And several leaders are plotting a large, splashy evangelical confab in Washington that, Perkins said, Trump may attend.

“We know the base of the (Democratic) Party is not going to accept anything less than a move to impeach and remove President Trump,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, who expects his organization to target between 15 million and 18 million voters in key battleground states and House districts through mail, phone calls, digital advertising and in some places, door-knocking.

“We think people ought to know before they go to the polls, based on the available evidence … would you support the impeachment of President Trump? We think that’s a completely reasonable thing to ask someone and have not ruled out putting it on our voter guides,” he said, adding that in the Sixth District of Georgia alone, around 500 churches accepted his organization’s voter guides during last year’s special election there.

WASHINGTON GATHERING

Meanwhile, Perkins and other conservative officials are planning to invite about 1,000 evangelical leaders – and Trump himself – to a gathering in Washington this June (news of an evangelical meeting was first reported by NPR). Two years ago, a similar event took place in New York – but at the time, many attendees walked away still skeptical of the thrice-married Trump who said he had never asked God for forgiveness.

This time around, some of the same figures who were Trump holdouts in the summer of 2016 are his most vocal, unshakeable supporters. It’s a transition that started during the campaign and solidified as Trump appointed conservative judges and signed a religious liberty executive order.