Data analysts are already publishing available information about sex/gender, income, education and racial/ethnic breakdowns of Americans who voted for Kamala Harris versus those who voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election this year.
Another set of data explores the important relationship between religious beliefs and support for presidential candidates and their policies.
By way of background, according to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 68 percent of Americans identify as Christians; 33 percent say they are Protestants, 22 percent are Catholic and the remainder say they belong to another sect of Christianity or are just “Christian” generally.
Seven percent of Americans – a number that has barely changed in the past 70 years – are members of “non-Christian” faiths, including two percent who are Jewish, one percent who are Muslim and another one precent who are Buddhist.
While Christians remain a significant majority of the U.S. population, their numbers have dropped dramatically. In 1956, for example, 96 percent of the country called themselves “Christians,” and only one percent described themselves as having “no religion.”
The latter group (sometimes called the “nones”) has seen the greatest growth in their numbers; nearly a quarter (22 percent) of Americans now say they belong to the “no religion” category.
Comparisons between the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections provide valuable insight into the role religion played in this year’s election results.
Trump has consistently done well with evangelical Protestants.
In 2016, according to Pew Research, fully 80 percent of white evangelical (“born again”) Protestants voted for Trump.
Immediately after the 2020 presidential election, National Public Radio published results of exit polls, comparing the results of the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Seventy-six percent of evangelical Protestants supported Trump in 2020.
Eighty percent voted for him this year.
Historically a working-class, Democratic Party constituency, American Catholics’ political loyalties have shifted somewhat in recent decades and tend now to split almost 50/50 between Republican and Democrat presidential candidates.
Not this year.
In 2016, 60 percent of white Catholics – but only 26 percent of Hispanic Catholics – voted for Trump. White Catholic support decreased for Trump in 2020, which may have affected results in Rust Belt/“blue wall” states with lots of Catholics, like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But – as a portent of things to come – larger numbers of Hispanic Catholics in Florida and Texas voted for Trump in 2020.
Trump’s support among Catholics increased substantially, from 47 percent overall (White and other Catholics) in 2020 to 58 percent this year, according to Washington Post exit polls.
That included a huge swing among Hispanic Catholics, nearly 60 percent of whom voted for Trump.
One Christian group that received a great deal of attention in 2024 was the Amish, who were heavily courted by the Republican Party’s Johnny Appleseed of voter registration, Scott Presler.
Though their numbers are not huge, the Amish were motivated, highly visible and voted en masse for Trump, helping him to win the swing state of Pennsylvania.
The Jewish vote is harder to categorize, but support for Democrats has remained quite constant; Reform, Conservative and “cultural” Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Trump received 24 percent of the Jewish vote in 2016 and 30 percent in 2020. Final 2024 data isn’t in, but according to exit polls, nearly 80 percent of American Jews voted for Harris.
Notably, Orthodox Jews vote differently; 74 percent of them voted for Trump this year. (Eighty-three percent voted for him in 2020.)
Trump also gained ground in the election polls with religious believers of non-Christian faiths.
Twenty-nine percent of non-Christians voted for Trump in 2020, while more than one-third (34 percent) voted for Trump this year. (A majority of Muslims preferred Green Party candidate Jill Stein or Trump over Harris in 2024.)
Voters unaffiliated with any religion are by far the largest number who support Democrats.
Nearly 70 percent voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Joe Biden got 85 percent of their vote in 2020.
Trump eroded that number somewhat, but 71 percent of the “nones” still voted for Harris.
For Trump voters, regardless of religious persuasion, the issues that mattered most were immigration, the economy and foreign policy.
Polls and headlines leading up to the election suggested that government abuse and overreach were also among their concerns.
What does this portend for future elections for years to come?
First, if the number of Americans who identify with “no religion” continues to climb, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win elections.
That said, however, the changing face of the American electorate caused by immigration may matter less in terms of ethnicity, racial background or country of origin than does the strength of immigrants’ religious beliefs.
Hispanics and African immigrants, for example, tend not only to be Catholic but also to have conservative cultural and religious viewpoints, making some of the Democratic Party’s assumptions about the benefits (to Democrats) of unchecked immigration problematic.
Those who leave their home countries and become American citizens are just as concerned as native-born Americans about open borders; Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas tended to support the Trump and Vance ticket and other Republican candidates who were promising to secure the border.
It’s distinctly possible that Democrats’ strategy to bring in millions of the world’s poor and use freebies and “diversity” to appeal to them as voters (assuming, of course, that they become able to vote – legally) will backfire on them for other reasons as well.
Immigrants fleeing crime, corruption and societal chaos are not inclined to support policies – or politicians – that permit homeless people living in the streets, legalized drug use, widespread theft, heightened crime, gang activity and lower penalties for criminals.
And this is without mentioning important issues like transgender “rights” that place males in female bathrooms, locker rooms and sports, as well as the ability of schools to “transition” children without their parents’ knowledge or over their objection; much less the risk of losing custody of their children if they object to those controverial gender “transitions.”
“Nones” notwithstanding, 70 percent of Americans say their religion is “fairly” or “very” important.
This year’s presidential election shows the risks of alienating huge swaths of those voters.
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To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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