Under Trump, The Ranks of White Evangelicals Grew. NewsWire

NewsWire: 9/23/21

• According to a new poll, Trump’s presidency did not lead many white evangelicals to leave their faith. To the contrary: Three times more white Americans started identifying as evangelicals from 2016 to 2020 than stopped doing so. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: Because Donald Trump was elected president in part due to strong support from white evangelicals, Pew recently examined how identification with the evangelical church changed during his administration. The results are striking.
• From 2016 to 2020, more white Americans began identifying as evangelical Protestants than stopped doing so. Just 2% of white adults who identified as evangelical in 2016 no longer did so by 2020. That was easily offset by the 6% of white adults who started identifying as evangelical. Bottom line: The total share of white voters who identified as "born again/evangelical" rose from 25% in 2016 to 29% in 2020.

• White non-evangelical Americans who expressed a positive view of Trump during this timespan were especially likely to begin to identify as evangelical (16%). In contrast, hardly any white non-evangelical Americans (1%) whose views of Trump were neutral or negative began doing so.

• The analysis also found that the share of white evangelicals who voted for Trump grew stronger over time. In 2016, 69% of them voted for him. In 2020, 9% of those evangelicals did not vote for him, but an additional 18% did. That netted out to a 78% share of their vote in 2020.
• Many pundits have wondered whether Trump's beliefs or behavior might over time cost him support among evangelicals--either by causing people to "de-identify" with evangelicals or by causing evangelicals to vote for someone else. Clearly, this has not happened. And the reason has been articulately explained by Lilliana Mason in her brilliant (and short!) book, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.  
• Political parties, she explains, have become "mega identities" to a large share of Americans today. Redzone and bluezone have become tribes by which we sort our beliefs, lifestyles, brands, neighborhoods, careers, hobbies, and--only incidentally--the candidates we vote for. As such, we no longer belong to a religion and judge a party by that religion. Increasingly, we do the opposite: We belong to a party and judge a religion by that party.
• So if I belong to the redzone and redzone leaders say evangelicals are good, well then, I self-identify as "evangelical." It makes little difference that I don't go to church any more than Donald Trump. Similarly, if I belong to the bluezone and bluezone leaders say all religions are bad, then I self-identify as "no religion." In this case, it makes little difference if I do go to church as often as Joe Biden.