I checked in on where things stand with a hugely important part of Trump’s base: white Christians. He’s continuing to see strong support from white evangelicals, but also appears to be losing ground among white Catholics – which could really cost him. https://t.co/aNWwJFHeQO pic.twitter.com/Lq4hbzlsxt
— Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux (@ameliatd) October 29, 2020
When it comes to Tuesday’s big vote, politics matter.
So, too, does religion.
On Election Night, here are five revealing questions that Godbeat pros will be asking:
1. Was President Donald Trump able to maintain his overwhelming level of support — roughly 80% in 2016 — among White evangelicals?
“If that number is significantly lower, I would think it has to do with younger evangelicals and maybe women evangelicals getting fed up,” said Kimberly Winston, an award-winning religion reporter based in California.
The pre-election outlook? Trump is “losing ground with some — but not all — White Christians,” reports FiveThirtyEight’s Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux.
On the flip side, Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt highlights evangelical voters who express “more faith in Trump” than they did four years ago.
2. What difference did Catholic voters make, particularly in all-important swing states?
NPR religion correspondent Tom Gjelten notes that in 2016 “it was not the evangelicals who carried Trump to victory but Catholics, a group he had rarely mentioned in his speeches.”
Gjelten explains:
Despite losing the popular vote, Trump reached the presidency in large part because he won traditionally Democratic Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all states in which Catholics outnumber evangelicals by significant margins.
Religion Unplugged’s Clemente Lisi, The Atlantic’s Emma Green and the Columbus Dispatch’s Danae King offer more insight on this key voting bloc. This is has also bee a major topic in GetReligion coverage of American politics for more than a decade, especially in the work of Richard Ostling and Terry Mattingly.
3. How did various subgroups — Mormons, Muslims and even the Amish among them — influence the outcome?
Trump’s campaign has made a “concerted effort” to expand support among Arizona and Nevada members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Salt Lake Tribune’s Lee Davidson reports.
Muslim voters could “prove consequential in key swing states,” including Arizona and Georgia, according to the Huffington Post’s Rowaida Abdelaziz.
And in Pennsylvania, the president and his supporters are “courting the Amish,” even though they don’t tend to vote, the York Daily Record’s Mike Argento notes.
4. Did faith-based voters base their choice on a single issue (think abortion) or multiple concerns (a demographic targeted by former Vice President Joe Biden)?
In an email, Associated Press religion writer Elana Schor reflects on this question:
It’s a frame we often hear applied to the Catholic electorate, in terms of emphasis on abortion as an overarching motivator versus other issues prioritized as part of a bigger life ethic, such as support for migrants/refugees and action on climate change. But I see this as a key element of Biden’s outreach to Christian voters overall, particularly those who lean more to the right. Biden’s faith director has called systemic racism the preeminent religious issue of the campaign, but certainly the Democratic nominee has presented a bigger palette of multi-issue engagement to religious voters — in contrast to the Trump campaign’s more traditionally conservative pitch that’s grounded in abortion restrictions, judicial nominees and rhetorical emphasis on religious freedom.
If Biden can make inroads with Christian voters broadly speaking, compared with Clinton’s 2016 performance, we can partly credit that multi-issue pitch to people of faith as a reason he built a diverse, winning coalition. If Biden largely ends up at (Hillary) Clinton’s level with those religious voters he’s courting, it will suggest that his leftward shift on abortion was a serious early setback.
Really smart from @spulliam on the rural / urban divide in evangelical ministry and how that relates to Trumphttps://t.co/z8YKsRusIU
— Emma Green (@emmaogreen) December 15, 2016
5. What surprising trends or issues emerged that nobody anticipated?
Election 2020’s takeaway, from a religion standpoint, might not be apparent immediately.
“In 2016, I waited a week to figure out my big election story, and it paid off because it took us several days to really figure out what had happened,” Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey said. “I suspect this year will be similar.”
After the 2016 election, Bailey reported from Mount Airy, N.C. — aka “Mayberry” — on “How nostalgia for white Christian America drove so many Americans to vote for Trump.” She also explored how Trump’s victory “put the spotlight on white, rural voters, many of them evangelicals.”
Four years later, Peter Smith, religion writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said he’ll pay close attention to exit polls in his home state, especially “since the candidates seem to be running for president of Pennsylvania.”
“I’m particularly interested in the Catholic vote, but others as well,” Smith said. “If it’s as close as in 2016, every single demographic will count.
“A subsequent question will be: If Biden wins, to what extent will religious leaders who support Trump urge the president to accept or challenge the results?” the Post-Gazette writer added. “I suppose the reverse could be asked, but Biden hasn’t made noises about refusing to accept a losing result.”
The candidates’ victory and/or concession speeches also could provide newsworthy fodder for religion journalists.
“I am fascinated by civic religion,” Winston said, “so I’ll be looking for hat tips to the old standards: ‘city on a hill,’ ‘God bless America,’ references to American exceptionalism, etc. And I’ll be curious to see, when a winner is declared, if the winners acknowledge a
higher power.
“And heaven forbid, but if there is unrest/violence after the results, I’ll be watching to see what faith leaders do.”
CONTINUE READING: “Faith And Politics: 5 Revealing Questions To Ask On Election Night” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.
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