Allow me to dispel a myth. It is simply not the case that the majority of Christians intend to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
This was news to me too.
The whole “81 percent” shtick had somehow led me to believe most American Christians will vote for Trump. The numbers, however, tell a different story.
According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, a slight majority (51%) of Protestants say they are likely to vote for Trump, though only 39 percent say they definitely will. Among Catholics, 44 percent are likely to cast their ballots for Trump (only a third are for sure on the Trump train), and among Black Protestants, the number of likely Trump-voters is a meager 4 percent.
That means, if 51 percent of Protestants (who make up about half the country) and 44 percent of Catholics (about a quarter of the country) plan to vote for Trump, about 48 percent of all American Christians are likely to vote to reelect the incumbent–less than half–and just over a third are certain they will.
The catch, however, is exactly where it was four years ago. Seventy-five percent of white evangelicals say they are likely to vote Trump (59% say they “definitely” will and 17% say they “probably” will).
This strikes me because it betrays a narrative that American Christians are sold out for Trump. Most of them, especially those who are not white evangelicals, are not. Many say they are committed to or likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, and about 13 percent say they don’t yet know who they will vote for or if they will vote. (Depending on how those 13 percent end up voting, it could be that more than half of Christians vote to reelect President Trump, but that is not their current stated intention.)
The bottom line is this. The majority of American Christians aren’t planning to vote for Trump, though the majority of white evangelicals are. For the sake of Christians everywhere, we should try to get this right.
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