Not running would indeed contribute to not getting elected.

Personally, I think religious affiliation in general is becoming less of a factor in American politics. Trump, at first, awkwardly tried to suck up to the evangelical right by trying to convince them he was a devout Presbyterian. What he discovered is that it didn't matter. They knew he was essentially a secular humanist and a moral train wreck but they didn't care because he was a Republican (or, more accurately, because he wasn't Hillary Clinton).

Religion and politics has always been a bad mix. Inevitably, it's the religious values that end up getting compromised. I hate the results of the 2016 presidential election, but if there's one good thing that can come from it it may be that we finally put to rest the flawed notion that we should vote for candidates based on their purported religious beliefs.