Religion And The 2024 Vote: Data Shows A Crisis Point For Democrats
(ANALYSIS) Who voted how in 2024? The two most important surveys on U.S. election patterns are now available and among the findings is this bulletin: Along with its various current woes, in the long term the Democratic Party faces weakening support from many religious groups that is nearing a political emergency. No effective game plan for a turnaround is in sight.
Media “exit polls” of voters taken on Election Day are next to worthless, asserts political scientist Ryan Burge, and they mostly exist so that so TV pundits have something to talk about until actual votes come in. Our best information comes months later, from two organizations.
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The Pew Research Center reported last Thursday on its survey of 8,942 adults who actually voted. Then there is academics’ Cooperative Election Study (CES), with findings from 50,000-plus respondents, that Burge has been analyzing in his Substack columns, which also appear at Religion Unplugged.
According to Pew, Donald Trump won first and foremost by sweeping evangelical Protestants with 81%. No news there. They always go heavily for the Republican nominee. More intriguing are Trump’s significant 2024 gains with other groups, compared with 2020. Support of white Catholics increased from 57% to 62%, Hispanic Catholics from 31% to 41%, Black Protestants from 9% to 15% and Protestants of other races (including Asians) from 55% to a notable 70%.
Two other groups held steady since last time, white non-evangelical (or “mainline”) Protestants at 58% Republican, and voters without any religious identity at 70% Democratic. The second category has become the most important sector of the Democratic coalition in terms of religion, though the 21st Century expansion of this secularized population may have halted. As a practical matter, such unattached voters can be hard to mobilize.
Among Harris voters, exactly half were Christians of whatever category while a hefty 39% lacked religious affiliation (versus only 15% of Trump voters). Harris won 56% of voters who rarely attend worship services, while Trump carried 64% of those who attend monthly or more often. These political patterns naturally reinforce the worrisome cultural polarization in the United States.
The Catholic situation is especially important because Democrats have lost leverage with a huge constituency they once commanded. Not surprisingly, they gave the first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, an estimated 78% in 1960, while the second, Joseph Biden, managed only 52% in 2020.
By CES count, Catholics over-all went 56% for Trump last November, but here’s the socio-political earthquake: Non-white Catholics (mostly Hispanics) went 40% for Trump, compared with 31% in 2020 and only 24% in 2016.
The abortion issue, which solidified evangelicals’ customary Republican enthusiasm, energizes a segment of Catholics. But CES found that two-thirds of Catholics overall favor legal choice and improved access to abortion services. Burge says Catholics generally were more motivated by economic concerns such as inflation, just like other Americans.
Look at Catholic clout this way. In the 2024 popular vote, Trump beat Kamala Harris by 1.6%. But presidents are chosen by the quirks of the Electoral College. Harris would be president today if she could have added just 229,800 more votes, among the 152 million cast nationwide, across just three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. According to the latest U.S. Religion Census, these states contain 5,575,915 Catholics, who would easily have produced a Democratic victory in times past.
As Burge summarizes the reality, “Catholics are not a 50/50 voting bloc any more. … The Catholic vote is clearly a Republican vote.” Then this: “If the Democrats want to have any chance at all going forward, they need to figure out how to fix this huge problem.”
Turning to Protestants, we’ll learn in 2028 whether Trump’s notable 2024 gain among the heavily Democratic Black churchgoers was a fluke or a trend. It seems certain that Democrats cannot improve their performance with white evangelicals for years to come. But what about the third Protestant category, non-evangelicals who mostly belong to predominantly white “mainline” churches? Yes, their numbers and influence have steadily declined over recent decades, but they still cast millions of votes.
The CES sample was so huge that it can provide specific numbers for adherents of the seven major “mainline” denominations. Their officials have long uttered liberal public policy views, and they’ve been moving to the left on religious issues as well, so they might seem to be prime prospects for the Democrats. Instead, there’s a Republican trend.
Burge reports that five of these seven majors actually gave Trump 2024 majorities, the exceptions being Harris majorities in the Episcopal Church (55%) and American Baptist Churches (52%). Then, note these increases in Trump support between 2016 and 2024: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from 44% to 51%, Presbyterian Church (USA) from 49% to 57%, United Church of Christ from 45% to 51% and United Methodist Church from 59% to 62%. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America held steady at 54% and 53%.
Post-Trump, will Catholics and "mainline" Protestants both be reliably Republican, alongside the GOP’s evangelical Protestant legions?
Neither Burge nor Pew reported numbers for U.S. Muslims or adherents of other world religions. CES results show that Jews remain a steady part of the Democratic coalition. Though the Orthodox branch goes Republican, Jews over-all voted 65% for Harris, and supported the Democratic nominees by 69%, 69%, 65% and 70% in prior elections.
Among Latter-day Saints (formerly nicknamed “Mormons”), Republican identification has fallen to 58%, CES reported, with 25% Democrats and 17% Independents. Trump’s first run in 2016 took a mere 52% of LDS votes due to their 26% third-party backing. The Saints gave Trump 66% in both 2024 and 2020, which unsurprisingly was 18% below LDS candidate Mitt Romney’s 2012 support, but also 7% below the 2008 vote for John McCain.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.