Democrats made shocking gains with religious voters — but not everywhere
Key takeaways This year’s blue tsunami carried voters everywhere to the left; it also scrambled voting trends in America’s religious electorate.
- For years, American politics has seemed stuck on a partisan track, with religious-identified voters shifting more firmly to the right, and the nonreligious tacking to the left.
- | Emily Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images One of the most eye-opening aspects of last week’s midterms was the new cohort of religious politicians it sent to Congress — many of them part of a wave of Democratic-leaning Christians.
- And with religion, as with any single voter attribute, it can be difficult to tease out just how much faith and religious identity influenced vote choice, as opposed to working in combination with race, class, and concerns about issues like affordability and immigration.
The data is still early and patchy, but it appears that Catholic voters around the country moved left, evangelical Christians stayed home, and some Jewish voters dug in against the anti-Israel rhetoric and moved rightward.
There are a few exceptions, of course — Jewish voters, Latino Catholics, and Black Protestants, who have stayed firmly Democratic — but the broader tide has flowed clearly one way.
- Since then, they’ve gradually become more Republican, due to assimilation of former European Catholic immigrants, the rise of conservative activism over abortion and social issues, and the rise of the religious right.
- Now, in a year in which Trump and Republicans frequently clashed with Pope Leo XIV and his bishops — over the Iran war, mass deportations, and immigration policy — Catholic voters again turned into a wild card.
- As a subgroup, that put Catholics up there with Asian voters, Latinos, urban and suburban voters, Gen Z and millennials as being the top groups that swung to the left this year.
- Another striking feature was the dramatic shift among many religious voters.
- Other religious groups, mainline Protestants and Muslims, contributed to a diverse Democratic coalition — while evangelicals appeared less enthusiastic to turn out.
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