Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
7 Figures: Faith and the 2016 Campaign
7 Figures: Faith and the 2016 Campaign
May 13, 2025 8:45 PM

A new Pew Research Center survey examines how voters feel about the religiosity of presidential candidates. Here are seven figures you should know from the report:

1. More than half of Americans (51 percent) say they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who does not believe in God. (This is down from 63 percent in 2007.)

2. About half of U.S. adults say it’s “very important” (27 percent) or “somewhat important” (24 percent) for a president to share their religious perspective. This view is mon among Republicans, among whom roughly two-thirds say it’s at least “somewhat important” to them that the president share their religious beliefs.

3. Relatively few Republicans think Trump is a particularly religious person. Overall, 44 percent of Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party say Trump is a “very religious” (5 percent) or “somewhat religious” (39 percent) person, while 47 percent say he is “not too religious” or “not at all religious.” By contrast, fully eight-in-ten Republicanssay Ben Carson is a religious person, three-quarters view Ted Cruz as a religious person, and seven-in-ten say the same about Marco Rubio.

4. More people view Clinton as “very” or “somewhat” religious than say the same about Sanders. This is true among both the public as a whole (48 percent vs. 40 percent) and those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (65 percent vs. 47 percent).

5. Fully half of religiously unaffiliated registered voters (51 percent) think Sanders would be a successful president, while four-in-ten (42 percent) think Clinton would be a good or great president. Among black Protestant voters, about six-in-ten (62 percent) think Clinton will be a “good” or a “great” president, while 36 percent say this about Sanders. Among both groups (religious “nones” and black Protestants), just 15 percent or fewer think any of the Republican candidates would be good presidents.

6. Within their own party, more people in their own party than the opposing party view presidential candidates as religious. The biggest partisan gap is about Hillary Clinton: two-thirds of Democrats say she is “very” or “somewhat” religious, while two-thirds of Republicans say she is “not too” or “not at all” religious.

7. Half of Americans (51 percent) believe religious conservatives have too much control over the GOP, and more than four-in-ten (44 percent) think that liberals who arenotreligious have too much control over the Democratic Party.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The return of ‘Tariff Man’, nemesis of the poor
“I am a tariff man,” said the Republican president. He based his strong support of tariffs on the idea that industries within the U.S. needed “protection” from petition. A vocal opponent of free trade, his view was that America could tax its way to prosperity. Prices on consumer good rose, which helped to cause the Republicans to lose their majority in the House. But “tariff man” never wavered from his protectionist impulses, no matter how much damage they caused. By...
Explainer: Congress passes bill to help Christians and other genocide victims in Iraq and Syria
What just happened? Earlier this week the U.S. Congress voted unanimously to support HR 309, the “Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018.” The purpose of the bill is to provide relief for victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes who are members of religious and ethnic minority groups in Iraq and Syria, for accountability for perpetrators of these crimes, and for other purposes. The bipartisan bill, first introduced in 2017 by Representatives Chris Smith...
Lacordaire: penitent religious, unrepentant classical liberal
As our Acton Institute prepares for its Rome conference tomorrow, December 4, on the Dominican contribution to “Freedom, Virtue, and the Good Society”, extraordinary men and women from the Order of e to mind: Albert the Great, Catherine of Siena, and perhaps the most famous of all, the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas. Together these medieval stalwarts of the faith, truth, and justice laid the groundwork for modern science, modern learning, and even modern politics. The great Dominican heritage may have...
Radio Free Acton: A.J. Jacobs on coffee and gratitude; The story of freedom in Estonia
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, producer Caroline Roberts speaks with A.J. Jacobs, journalist and New York Times bestselling author, about his latest book “Thanks a Thousand,” detailing his trip around to world to find and thank each person who worked to produce his morning coffee. After that, senior editor at the Acton Institute, Rev. Ben Johnson, speaks with Estonian politician Mari-Ann Kelam about her witness of Soviet occupied Estonia and her work to champion freedom even after the...
A free and virtuous society: Lessons from Les Misérables
Interpreting works of literature is always a dicey task—it’s all too easy to find the conclusions we want to find and turn authors into spokesmen for our own ideas. In these reflections on Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, I don’t claim that what I say is necessarily what Hugo himself intended. That said, though, his unforgettable story gives worthwhile insights into the workings of a free and virtuous society. There’s a reason the novel’s title is seldom translated into English—misérables means...
6 Quotes: George H.W. Bush on freedom and economic liberty
President George H.W. Bush died on Friday at the age of 94. Bush became a war-hero and earned a degree in economics from Yale before entering into a career that made him one of the greatest statesmen ofthe twentieth century. Throughout his life Bush was a champion of freedom—for individual, for markets, and for nations. Here are six of Bush’s most important quotes onfreedom and economic liberty: On the misuse of the terms freedom and liberty: “No terms have been...
What labor force participation is (and why it matters)
Note: This is post #103 in a weekly video series on basic economics. Labor force participation is an important concept connected to employment. The labor force participation rate is defined as the section of working population in the age group of 16-64 in the economy currently employed or seeking employment.The formula for the labor force participation rate is therefore rather simple: labor force (unemployed + employed) / adult population, excluding people in the military or prison for both. The total...
Avoiding ‘beepocalypse’: What beekeeping entrepreneurs teach us about stewardship
Over the past decade, we have received many resounding warnings of an impending “beepocalypse”—and for good reason. Honeybee mortality rates have spiked and scientists are still struggling to pinpoint the cause, posing a range of environmental concerns and putting many important crops at risk. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bees add $15 billion in annual revenue to the economy. Yet amid the increase in bee mortality—attributed to something called colony collapse disorder (CCD)—the country’s beekeeping entrepreneurs have quietly...
Maslow, material needs, and the gospel
“Human beings are created with bodies and souls,”says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. “We have both material and spiritual needs.” Earlier this year, Susan Mettes of Christianity Today critiqued the use of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a ministry tool. The central idea of the hierarchy, as Mettes puts it, is “that physical needs must be met before people experience spiritual needs.” Mettes argues against such a dualistic perspective, and instead points out that the Bible places a...
3 things to understand about President George H. W. Bush
There are few men who define an era, a school of thought or anything of the sort. There are even in smaller numbers those who, once dead, give us a feeling that along with them a whole es to an end. It seems to me that this is the correct reading of the death of the 41st president of the United States (1989-1993). With George H. Bush, we have lost not only a man but a style and a special...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved