New surveys reveal Harris' support among Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics

The new Democratic ticket for U.S. president gained support among certain religious voters, while the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump maintains steady support among others despite recent fallout over abortion.

Two new reports, one from Lifeway Research on Tuesday and another from Pew Research Center last week offer the first quantitative picture of religious voters’ views on the November election since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee instead of President Joe Biden . Just as the bid of Harris and that of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz , shifted attitudes within the electorate more broadly, so has it with religious voters.

“Out of all the descriptors of pastors, their own political party preference is the best predictor of how they will vote,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, a subdivision for the publishing arm of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, in a news release. “Denominational groups often lean one way politically, but pastors must minister alongside many clergy who don’t share their political views.”

The Lifeway Research report, based on responses collected between Aug. 8 to Sept. 3, specifically surveyed pastors across different Protestant denominations. The Pew report is based on a survey from Aug. 26 to Sept. 3 of voters representing various religious traditions. Here are key takeaways:

Important context: Harris enters the race, Trump and abortion

Some of the biggest questions lately on the role of religion in the November election have been about Harris’ support among various faith groups compared to Biden and about Christians’ attitudes toward Trump amid ongoing conflict over abortion.

Abortion has been the single-most important issue for the evangelical alliance with Trump starting back in 2016. But that balance has shifted recently with Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, showing support for state autonomy in determining abortion restrictions and for in vitro fertilization, or IVF. For conservative evangelicals, who desire tighter abortion restrictions within every state and at the federal level and who are more explicitly opposing IVF , the Republican party’s shifting stance on reproductive health is an outrage and for some feels like a betrayal.

Before Biden dropped out of the race, Pew published a report in April that showed 81% of white evangelical Protestant voters and 61% of white Catholics supported Trump. In that same report, 77% of Black Protestants and 49% of Hispanic Catholics supported Biden.

Harris’ entrance into the presidential race is expected to generate greater support among non-white faith groups, especially among historically Black church communities. Harris herself has been affiliated with a historically Black congregation in San Francisco that’s aligned with the National Baptist Convention, USA, which is the nation’s largest Black Protestant denomination and is headquartered in Nashville.

Recent and related: How a new effort aims to reclaim evangelical Christian label and bridge partisan divides

New data: Harris vs. Trump

The top-level statistics from the new Lifeway Research report and most recent Pew data are:

• The Lifeway Research survey of pastors found 50% of respondents planned to vote for Trump while 24% planned to vote for Harris. Among the pastors who planned to vote for Harris, 71% were Black and 21% were white.
• In the recent Pew report on religious voters, 86% of Black Protestants and 65% of Hispanic Catholics planned to vote for Harris. Compared to that same data for Biden in Pew’s previous report, Harris saw an uptick of 9 percentage points for Black Protestant voters and 16 percentage points for Hispanic Catholics.
• Comparing the two Pew reports, overall support for Trump among white evangelical Protestant voters and white Catholics didn’t significantly change. “Otherwise, the religious dynamics of the U.S. presidential campaign look about as they did in the spring,” said Gregory Smith, senior associate director of research at Pew, in a Sept. 9 post.

On the issues: immigration, abortion, personal character

The new Lifeway Research and Pew reports show party affiliation is the factor most indicative of religious voters’ support for Harris versus Trump, meaning those voters care about a variety of issues important to Democrats and Republicans.

According to the Lifeway Research report, the top issues in determining a pastor's vote are national security, religious freedom, foreign policy, the economy, immigration, abortion and personal character. Among those issues, the recent Pew report emphasized immigration and said the importance of the issue is highest among faith groups most likely to support Trump — white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics.

“Pastors are not single-issue voters. They care deeply about where presidential candidates stand on many issues,” said McConnell in a news release about Lifeway Research’s findings.

As a result, abortion doesn’t seem to be the most dominant issue for evangelical Christians and white Catholics. It’s unclear how much of that is a response to Trump’s recent comments on abortion, which some conservative Christians have criticized as no less pro-choice than the Democrats. Pew said fewer Catholics and white Protestants rated abortion as a “very important issue” compared to more Democratic-leaning categories of religious voters, such as atheist, agnostic and Jewish voters.

Lifeway Research found 29% of pastors planning to vote for Trump said abortion is an important issue. That group was mostly comprised of older, white, male, evangelical pastors. Meanwhile, instead of abortion, pastors who were women, Black and affiliated with mainline Protestant groups said “personal character” was important to determine which candidate they vote for.

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: New surveys reveal Harris' support among Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics