(CP) Twice as many pastors say they plan to support former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris within the upcoming election, although many are reluctant to share their preferences, in keeping with a recent survey.
Lifeway Research released a report Tuesday based on responses collected from 1,003 Protestant pastors within the United States between Aug. 8 and Sept. 3. With an error margin of +3.3 percentage points, the survey examines pastors’ views on the upcoming presidential election, finding that fifty% of respondents plan to support Trump while 24% intend to vote for Harris.
A major share of pastors (23%) indicated they were undecided on who they planned to vote for within the election.
“We ask pastors about many things happening within the culture today they usually are willing to offer their opinion,” Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said in a statement. “However, the growing variety of pastors unwilling to reply with their voting intentions shows how sensitive or divisive politics has develop into in some churches.”
The report found that exactly one-half of those surveyed identified as Republicans, while 25% characterised themselves as independents and 18% described themselves as Democrats.
“Out of all of the descriptors of pastors, their very own political party preference is the perfect predictor of how they’ll vote,” McConnell maintained. “Denominational groups often lean a method politically, but pastors must minister alongside many clergy who don’t share their political opinions.
“The same is true inside their very own congregations. In a culture that increasingly doesn’t need to tolerate individuals with different political opinions, pastors lead churches that strive for unity centered on faith.”
The findings are much like Lifeway’s 2020 survey, which found 53% of Protestant pastors planned to vote for Trump in that yr’s election, while 21% planned to support Joe Biden and 22% were undecided. In 2016, 4 in 10 pastors said they were still undecided as of September of that yr, while nearly a 3rd (32%) planned to vote for Trump and 19% planned to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In 2024, Pentecostals had the very best share of respondents who planned to support Trump (65%), followed by Baptists (64%), non-denominational Christians (64%), members of the Church of Christ (55%), Lutherans (48%), Methodists (26%) and Presbyterians (24%). A much higher share of self-described Evangelical pastors (61%) signaled their intention to support Trump than their mainline Protestant counterparts (30%).
In addition to asking pastors which candidate they like within the election, the survey also asked respondents to discover “which characteristics of the candidate are necessary to you decide solid your vote.”
Eighty-five percent of those surveyed listed the “ability to keep up national security” as a big determinant behind their decision on who to support within the election.
Other characteristics greater than 80% of pastors see as essential qualities in a candidate are their “ability to guard religious freedom” (84%), their “position on foreign policy” (83%), their “ability to enhance the economy” (83%), their “position on immigration” (81%) and their “position on abortion” (80%).
Large majorities of respondents also pointed to a candidate’s “personal character” (79%) and “likely Supreme Court nominees” (75%) as aspects that influenced their decision.
While 71% of those surveyed view a candidate’s “ability to handle racial injustice” as necessary and 70% of respondents feel the identical way a few candidate’s “position on [the] size and role of presidency,” lower than half (38%) placed the same level of weight on a candidate’s “ability to handle climate change.” When asked what they thought was an important single factor influencing their vote, a plurality (24%) said they consider a candidate’s “personal character” especially crucial.
Other popular selections for an important characteristic in a presidential candidate include their views on abortion (18%), “ability to guard religious freedom” (16%) and “ability to enhance the economy” (12%). Less than 5% of respondents listed all other candidate characteristics as an important consider determining their vote within the 2024 election.
“Pastors should not single-issue voters. They care deeply about where presidential candidates stand on many issues,” McConnell stated. “There are moral dimensions to the entire characteristics that may very well be chosen, and pastors didn’t all pick the identical characteristic as most vital.”
