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    • What will happen if millions of religious people do not participate in the 2024 elections?
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    What will happen if millions of religious people do not participate in the 2024 elections?

    Harry Posted on

    It was Trump’s rare remarks that caused groans that spread quickly in conservative media.

    But this voice came from someone Former First Lady Melania Trump’s upcoming tribute: “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the authority to decide what to do with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right to individual freedom, her own life, gives her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes. … I have carried this belief with me my entire adult life.”

    Former President Donald Trump had already softened his party’s strong stance against abortion. satirists Babylon Bee to note: “Pro-lifers are excited to choose between a moderate amount of infanticide and a high amount of infanticide.”

    To put this in ballot box terms, New research from the Cultural Research Center A study at Arizona Christian University claimed that 32 million church-going Christians are prepared to disagree in this election; Many of these are because they are disappointed or believe the results will be rigged.

    If the number of conservative faithful going to the polls declines, that would clash with trends in the last four White House races, according to Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan Burge, author of “20 Myths About Religion and Politics in America.”

    Reached by phone, Burge said, “Half of Christians will not vote. This is normal. This is old news. We can expect these numbers to remain stable.”

    But there’s another trend researchers expect to see again, he added. Yes, 80% of white evangelicals “voted for John McCain in 2008, and 80% voted for Donald Trump. We can expect that to happen again. That’s what they’re doing.”

    When it comes to “red” conservative and “blue” liberal voting among Protestants, those trends are fairly consistent, Burge wrote. “Religion Charts” Substack newsletter. In a recent post, he analyzed 2008-2020 Cooperative Election Study figures for the 40 largest Protestant denominations.

    “It wasn’t surprising that the most predominantly Republican denominations came largely from a handful of families: Pentecostal, nondenominational, and Baptist. But among the ‘reddest’ churches there are a few that sneak up on me,” Burge wrote. American Baptist Churches in the U.S. A progressive person in .

    The “blue” end of the spectrum was easy to define; It consisted of voters from “many historically Black denominations.” These were groups such as the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church of God in Christ, the National Baptist Convention, and the African Methodists. Episcopal Church.”

    Directly above these churches were some “strong mainline groups” such as the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Disciples of Jesus.

    But a few figures were surprising.

    “The big story for me is the noticeable shift to the right in the voting patterns of United Methodists. In 2008, the voter turnout for McCain was 55%, and that has slowly increased. In both 2016 and 2020, about 61% of United Methodists were Trump supporters ,” Burge wrote. But because of the recent doctrinal divide in that denomination, “I would fully expect the UMC voting bloc to be less red in the 2024 contest.”

    Among Presbyterians, voters in the liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) were surprisingly “purple,” with 52% voting for Trump in the last two elections.

    On the right, 73% of small Evangelical Presbyterian Church voters voted for Trump in this election, while 65% of conservative Presbyterian Church voters in America voted “red” in 2016 and 64% voted “red” in 2020.

    Similar patterns were seen among the surprisingly “purple” voters in the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the consistently “red” voters in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

    The major trend in American Protestantism is the rapid growth of nondenominational churches, ranging from truly fundamentalist congregations to more moderate congregations. Researchers will watch carefully to spot patterns here, Burge said. Meanwhile, Latino Evangelicals and Pentecostals continue to be an emerging force within the Republican Party, especially in key states like Georgia, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

    “If you think things are going to change in this election, then you have to show me very strong evidence as to why that will happen,” Burge said. “When you think about it, even the candidates are the same. Kamala Harris is not as transformational a figure as Barack Obama. She’s just the next Democrat, and Trump is still Trump.”

    Terry Mattingly is a journalist and teacher who focuses on religion and continues to study both writing and religion.

    Harry
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