Explaining the Religious Vote for Trump
New research by LSU sociologists indicate it wasn’t Christian nationalism that drove churchgoers’ Trump vote in 2016. Rather, surprisingly, Christian nationalism was important among non-churchgoers.
The researchers were not surprised to see how Christian nationalism drove a big part
of the so-called “religious vote” for Trump in 2016, but quite surprised to see that
the connection was so strong for voters who don’t attend church, compared to those
who do.
BATON ROUGE, November 9, 2020—Christian nationalism is thought to have been an important factor in the election
of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016—and likely drove many of
his supporters to the polls in 2020. Now, new research shows Christian nationalist
support of Trump isn’t tied to religious institutions or attending church on a regular
basis. Instead, it’s tied to not attending church.
Regardless of political or personal background, voters who hold strong Christian nationalist
values voted for Trump at high levels if they didn’t go to church, according to 2017
survey data analyzed by Samuel Stroope and Heather Rackin, associate professors of sociology in the LSU College of Humanities & Social Sciences,
with co-authors Paul Froese of Baylor University and Jack Delehanty of Clark University.
The researchers define Christian nationalism as a set of beliefs about how Christianity
should be prioritized in public life, in laws, and in America’s national identity.
In a forthcoming paper in Sociological Forum, titled “Unchurched Christian Nationalism and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,” they call for nuance in explaining the so-called “religious vote” for Trump:
“The 2016 election may not be a straightforward story of religious communities coalescing
around the Christian nationalist candidate (…) Christian nationalism operates differently
for those inside and outside of religious institutions [and] religion’s most dynamic
effects on U.S. politics may have less to do with what happens inside churches than
with how people—whether they are individually religious or not—use religious ideas
to draw and impose boundaries around national identity.”
Stroope and Rackin pull together several threads from previous research. First, how
Christian nationalism can be seen as an aspect of a larger populist ethos of victimization,
embattlement, and resentment. Trump received significant support from alienated Americans
who appear to be disengaged from religious congregations and other social institutions.
Second, how Christian nationalist rhetoric can indicate nostalgia or be used as a
veil for increasingly unpopular opinions, such as racial bias or anti-LGBTQ views.
Referencing previous research, the authors write that “many Americans now feel that
they are victimized for expressing traditional values concerning marriage, sexuality,
and gender identity.”
Detachment from religious communities can also intensify conservative attitudes.
“Institutions in general can have a stabilizing effect on people’s lives and ideologies,”
Stroope said. “People who want to have their views ‘checked’ might also self-sort
into institutions. Furthermore, religious communities can have a stress-buffering
effect, so people feel less desperate for an authoritarian figure like Trump.”
Stroope and Rackin suggest the 2016 Christian nationalist vote for Trump was buoyed by the religiously disconnected, or “unchurched.”
Their analysis using national data confirmed that churchgoers overall were more likely
to vote for Trump than non-churchgoers. But these findings became more interesting
when the researchers took Christian nationalism into account, indicated by voters’
agreement or disagreement with statements such as “the federal government should declare
the United States a Christian nation,” or “the success of the United States is part
of God’s plan.”
For non-churchgoers, the percentage who voted for Trump contrasted sharply. Less than
10 percent of non-churchgoers who strongly disagreed with the Christian nationalist
statements voted for Trump. Meanwhile, nearly 90 percent of those who strongly agreed
with Christian nationalist statements did. For regular churchgoers, however, Trump
support did not have the same dramatic swing across different levels of Christian
nationalist sentiment. After Stroope and Rackin controlled for an array of background
characteristics, such as voters’ party affiliation, the effect of Christian nationalism
on Trump-voting was only clear for non-churchgoers. Stroope and Rackin did not find
any evidence that Christian nationalism was tied to Trump-voting among churchgoers.
LSU sociologists Samuel Stroope and Heather Rackin cannot dismiss the possibility
of Christian nationalism becoming an even stronger driver of American politics in
the future.
What motivated Stroope to study the religious vote for Trump in the first place was
the “dissonance” he perceived between why churchgoers would vote Republican and Trump’s
style of Christian nationalism.
“Some of what I saw didn’t quite mesh for me,” Stroope said. “On the one hand, I heard
anecdotal reports of patriotic church services and commentators’ claims that Christian
nationalism explained the ‘religious vote’ for Trump. Clearly, just like in other
recent elections, the religious vote mattered in 2016, but I questioned whether it
was because of Christian nationalism. On the other hand, research coming out of Europe
on right-wing populism suggests how it seems to activate religious identity among
people who aren’t regular churchgoers. In some ways, Trump is actually the perfect
candidate for people who aren’t very religiously observant yet have Christian nationalist
sentiments. He may have attracted unchurched Christian nationalist voters because he uses pro-Christian language but is himself not personally religiously observant.”
So, rather than being a story of how the religious nationalist vote for Trump was
driven by Christian leaders, churches, and institutions, Stroope and Rackin suggest
that it was buoyed by the religiously disconnected.
“You have to keep in mind that religion is complex and multidimensional,” Stroope
said. “It shouldn’t be surprising that many people who don’t attend church still have
religious beliefs and identities, and these religious identities can be used to draw
boundaries, infer value, and be a salve for alienation in a changing America.”
“In a relatively short time in our country, we’ve also seen rapid demographic and
cultural change,” Stroope continued. “With the first Black president in Barack Obama
and marriage equality, many people see rapid changes in American society, and this
can feel distressing or at least disorienting to some. And if they don’t belong to
a community or church where they can feel anchored and emotionally supported, their
feelings of distress probably aren’t soothed by things like talk radio, cable news,
or social media. Likely the opposite. If they fear their identity or way of life is
threatened, their distress may fester.”
With religious attendance generally in decline, great uncertainty with the U.S. economy
due to COVID-19 and a changing climate, Stroope and Rackin cannot dismiss the possibility
of Christian nationalism becoming an even stronger driver of American politics in
the future.
“There is room for yet more surprises,” Rackin said.
Elsa Hahne
LSU Office of Research & Economic Development
ehahne@lsu.edu