Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Four years ago, evangelicals tended to vote for Donald Trump because they were against Hillary Clinton. This year, they are voting more out of support for Trump than opposition to Joe Biden. That’s a big turn around and is seen as a vote of confidence for the policies of the Trump administration.
Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, shifted his perspective after four years of Trump. After serving on the president’s faith advisory panel in 2016, he now believes it’s “his call” to campaign for Trump. “He respects prayer, receives prayer and respects the faith community, but he gets a bad rap,” Suarez said.
READ: Trump campaign running ads on Christian radio
Many black faith leaders, who are typically Democrat, don’t share Suarez’s view, however. According to the same study, 90 percent of black Protestants said they will vote for Biden, and more than half said it was because of his policies. But that number is contradicted by polls of the black voters which show the President could gain anywhere between 20 and 40 percent of the vote. It’s the same with Hispanic voters where trump has more than doubled his support from four years ago.
However, 75 percent of white evangelicals who will vote for Biden will do so because they are “against Trump.”
A growing number of faith-based, anti-Trump groups have cropped up as election day nears, including Republican Voters Against Trump, Christians Against Trumpism, Evangelicals for Biden and Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden. Most of the groups are made up of liberals or liberal-leaning individuals who would not typically fit into the pro-life or conservative column. Some are even run by Democrats and funded by liberal PACs.
But the media is excited by their existence.
“We believe Christians who use, excuse and embrace toxic rhetoric to achieve specific policy ‘wins’ are short-sighted and wrong,” according to Christians Against Trumpism. Many faith leaders believe that outside of abortion, Biden’s policies are more aligned with scripture than Trump’s.
Not Our Faith, a recently formed Super PAC designed to splinter Christian support of Trump, launched a six-figure campaign focused on digital and TV ads. Former Obama faith adviser Michael Wear said in an interview that Trump has “in a predatory way attached himself to Christians.”
Race also serves as a dividing factor in presidential support amongst pastors, who follow similar trends as their congregations. Nearly 70 percent of white pastors will vote for Trump. But that’s not really the story. The same poll found that 40 percent of black pastors will also vote for Trump..
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice
