Journalists examined different factors that shaped the 2024 presidential election, focusing on how religious values and communities influenced the results and what they mean for a divided United States, during a Nov. 12 webinar.
The discussion, hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life — which promotes dialogue on Catholic social thought as well as national and global issues — was part of the Initiative’s “Faith and the Faithful” series, which began in 2014 to address the role of faith in U.S. politics and policy. In the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 5, former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, won both the popular vote and Electoral College, defeating Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
John Carr, who moderated the panel and is the founder of the Initiative, opened the discussion by stressing the importance of religion as a factor in national politics.
“What we don’t know and haven’t talked about much is how religious values and voters shape that outcome, and how the appeals of candidates and parties to people’s values and deepest convictions made a difference,” Carr said at the event. “Oftentimes, the role of religion, the role of values, is neglected or oversimplified.”
Judy Woodruff, a senior correspondent of PBS NewsHour whose series “America at a Crossroads” explores the effect of political divisions in the U.S., said the economy was a major factor in the election.
“I think it became pretty clear early on that people were frustrated with the current administration in a number of ways, but principally around the economy,” Woodruff said at the event. “While COVID has receded into the background, people still remember a lot of what happened there.”
Sabrina Rodriguez, a national politics reporter for The Washington Post, added that voters ultimately prioritized economic concerns over other issues.
“What Democrats were betting on in part was that people would look at Donald Trump, the person, and not be willing to vote for him, that because of his personality, the rhetoric he uses, some of the more far right policies or perspectives he’s embraced, that people would be alarmed,” Rodriguez said at the event. “Ultimately, it didn’t matter in the face of people feeling tremendous economic anxiety.”
Ryan Burge, a journalist and data analyst on religion and politics, said the religious and political makeup of the U.S. posed issues for the Democratic party.
“The Democrats have this huge problem — their coalition is this weird mishmash of atheists, but also Black Protestants, also Hispanic Catholics, also Muslims,” Burge said at the event.
Burge added that the shift in support toward Trump among Hispanic voters, a highly Catholic population, contributed to the election results.
“We’re seeing Hispanics move significantly to the right, and I think part of that is the Democratic Party has sort of taken them for granted, on cultural issues, on faith issues,” Burge said. “I think the Harris campaign, by leaning so hard into the ‘we’re going to bring Roe v. Wade back,’ and not talking about carve-outs for religious institutions, and not even really talking about religious institutions in a meaningful way, kind of pushed a lot of Hispanic Catholics away from the Democratic Party when they would have voted for them.”
Woodruff said bridging divisions in U.S. politics requires acknowledging the various circumstances that shape voting choices, rather than simply attributing them to character flaws.
“Bridging groups are out there trying to get people just to sit over a cup of coffee or over a beer, have a conversation and understand that somebody’s coming from a different place, but that doesn’t make them evil, it doesn’t make them a bad or dishonest or terrible person,” Woodruff said. “And yet, right now, most Republicans say they think most Democrats are dishonest, and vice versa, immoral.”
“That’s really sad, in my opinion, but that’s where we are and we’ve got a lot of work to do just to get to a place where we stop and are willing to entertain the idea that somebody could disagree with us politically, but that doesn’t make them a terrible person,” Woodruff added.
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