Author(s)
This brief is part of “Election 2024: Policy Playbook,” a series by Rice University and the Baker Institute that offers critical context, analysis, and recommendations to inform policymaking in the United States and Texas.
The Big Picture
- Religion’s influence in U.S. politics has surged, and Christian voters may have a greater impact on 2024’s election results than ever before.
- Two-thirds of Americans now identify as Christian, with an estimated 55% “practicing Christians,” and often align with more conservative positions.
- Practicing Christians are much more likely to vote compared to other eligible voters — giving them an outsized influence on election outcomes.
- Practicing Christians are more likely to vote Republican than other eligible voters, except for Black Christians.
Summarizing the Issue
Since the 1960s, the link between religion, race, and voting patterns has intensified. Researchers today can use a person’s specific religion and racial identities to determine voting behavior with significant accuracy. These insights are proving to be valuable tools for election analysts:
- According to Gallup, as of March 2024, two-thirds of adult Americans identify as Christian (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or other another denomination), while just 7% of adult Americans identify with another religion.
- Of those who identify as Christian, analysis shows that 55% are practicing, meaning they self-identify as Christian, say faith is important in their lives, and attend church at least monthly. Thus, at least one-third of adult Americans are practicing Christians.
- As the chart below indicates, Christian voting patterns vary by race — another powerful shaper of U.S. voting patterns.
The Christian Vote by Race
The percentage of practicing Christians who failed to vote in the 2016 presidential election is significantly less than for the general voting-eligible public, although this effect varies across each of the four major racial groups, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 — Percentage of Eligible Adults Not Voting in the 2016 Presidential Election, By Race and Religion
Christianity and Political Affiliation
Christianity increases the probability of voting Republican, except for African Americans. Consider the 2016 presidential election, when practicing Christians were seemingly torn as to whether to vote for Donald Trump. He clearly wasn’t “one of them,” there were “Never Trump” movements, and there were significant questions within Christian communities about his moral and ethical behaviors. Thus, the 2016 election serves as an excellent test of the impact of Christianity on presidential elections. Figure 2 compares all voting-eligible adults (divided by race) to practicing Christians as well as its evangelical subset:
Figure 2 — Percentage of Adults Voters Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election, by Race and Religion
As Figure 2 shows, a minority of the general voting population voted for Donald Trump in each racial category. But apart from African Americans — whose voting is primarily shaped by race rather than by the interaction of religion and race — the impact Christianity has on voting behavior is clearly significant. Hispanic practicing Christians are 38% more likely to have voted for Donald Trump than the general population of Hispanic voters. When looking just at evangelical Hispanics, the majority (57%) cast their vote for Trump. The pattern for Asian and white voters is even stronger. Only one-fourth of general Asian voters voted for Trump, but over half of Asian practicing Christians did (57%). And for Asian evangelicals, that figure climbs close to two-thirds. For white voters, a slight minority voted for Trump (48%), but for white practicing Christians, two-thirds cast their vote for him. And for white evangelicals, 80% voted for Donald Trump, just as they did in the 2020 election.
An Outsized Impact on Elections
The implication of these voting patterns is significant: Because practicing Christians form a sizable portion of the American electorate and vote at a much higher rate than other adults, they have an outsized influence on election outcomes beyond their numbers. According to current analysis, that influence includes a significantly increased likelihood that their turnout will primarily benefit Republican candidates. African American Christians are the exception as they vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates, regardless of religious commitments.
Why does this pattern occur? Several factors contribute to it, but one factor is the tie between Christian religious or community commitments and the spectrum of conservativism. My colleague and I asked a nationally representative sample of adults a series of questions about their views on social, moral, economic, and government issues. Figure 3 shows the average percentage of adults, by race and religion, who said that they held mostly conservative or very conservative views on these issues.
Figure 3 — Average Percentage of Voters Who Identify as Mostly or Very Conservative on Social, Economic, and Government Authority Issues
Strikingly, a comparison of Figures 2 and 3 shows a close correlation between how Christian voters identify on issues, regardless of affiliation, and how they actually vote. This mirroring of the data suggests that religion and religious communities shape a web of intertwined, ostensibly nonreligious factors that affect voting patterns, such as views on economics, government authority, fiscal responsibility, and social issues.
Expert Analysis
Due to significant changes in immigration laws (which opened the door to greater numbers of non-European immigrants) and several prominent social movements (such as those focusing on civil rights, feminism, and greater church/state separation), the 1960s gave rise to momentous social changes. America became far more diverse and pluralistic, and challenges to the status quo were frequent.
Following the 1960s, the link between religion, race, and politics began to crystallize. With movements such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority beginning in the late 1970s, how Christians viewed political issues outside of their religious communities became increasingly defined or even proscribed — including their views on the obligation to vote and who to vote for.
Through what is now several decades of change — including a growing tendency of people to self-identify with specific communities and increasing polarization between these groups — Christianity has become wound together with a host of political issues and linked with clear voting patterns. Practicing Christians largely vote Republican. This effect is strongest for white Americans, followed closely by Asian Americans. Hispanic Americans, too, are more likely to vote Republican if they are practicing Christians, though only in the majority if they identify specifically as evangelicals. African Americans are the exception to this pattern as they have overwhelmingly voted Democratic since the 1960s, whether they are practicing Christians or not. For this group, race is a far more important factor than the interaction of religion and race.
The Bottom Line
Religion is a potent factor in elections, and the role of Christianity in 2024’s political landscape will be significant. With the rise of newer organized movements, such as Christian nationalism, and the impact of polarized news and social media outlets, the voting behaviors of practicing Christians may have an even more pronounced impact on results than in past election cycles.
This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
