There is evidence that Robert Ballinger is registered to vote as a member of the Republican Party and lives in Toledo, Iowa. Toledo is a small town of just barely over 2,000 residents. That’s about all there is to discover about Robert. He keeps a very low profile.
Ann Ballinger is even more secretive than that. It’s not clear if Ann Ballinger lives in Toledo, or somewhere else in Tama County.
If Ann and Robert Ballinger were actual ministry leaders, that would mean that they would have followers. Their followers would talk about them sometimes, perhaps online. Their names would come up in a local newspaper every now and then.
None of that is happening.
So, are Robert and Ann Ballinger truly ministry leaders?
Could it be that they are just two people who walked into a Trump rally in Iowa one day, and agreed to say that they were ministry leaders, because Donald Trump couldn’t find any actual ministry leaders from Tama County to endorse his presidential campaign?
Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign lists Ann and Robert Ballinger as members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition from Tama County, Iowa
Trump gives Robert the label of “ministry leader”, and calls Ann Ballinger a “small group leader”.
The thing is, there’s no sign of any ministry that’s being led by Robert. There’s no evidence of any small group that has been led by Ann.
In fact, there’s barely any publicly available record of the mere existence of Robert or Ann Ballinger.
A new book, Donald Trump’s Army of God: Christian Nationalism in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, provides information about all 317 members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.
As “a case study in the violent extremism that has come to define the presidential election of 2024,” the book provides a grounded examination of Christian Nationalist ideology that is lacking from other, more theoretical, books on Christian Nationalism.
The Iowa Faith Leader Coalition is a murky political organization that violates the law
Learn more about the radical Christian Nationalists who belong to Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.