2020 Presidential Results by Religion

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I highly recommend anyone who is interested in statistics concerning American religion to follow Ryan Burge, because he regularly tweets out lots of interesting charts and graphs. This one recently caught my eye and I decided it was worth sharing with Atlas:

https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1692176047666794898

     There are some things I have noticed from it that intrigued me, but I am curious what other people can glean from the data.

[TheReckoning]

What actually is an “evangelical Christian”?

[Skill and Chance]

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

[Associate Justice PiT]

What actually is an “evangelical Christian”?

     Good question, I am not sure how the CES categorizes religion. It does seem to be in line with other survey results of how white Evangelicals vote though.

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

     It makes sense to me because the consequences of Bush-era attitudes towards Muslims don't just go away quickly. Along the same lines, I think a nontrivial factor in Trump winning Orthodox Christians by landslide margins is Middle Eastern Christians resonating with GOP suspicion of Islam.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

The Buddhist crosstab is also quite D. Very curious what the racial and ethnic breakdown of that group is.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Given the Tweeters claims on how Hispanic Evangelicals vote, the methodology seems imperfect.

[Хahar 🤔]

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

Man, people really want to believe that Muslims are going to start voting Republican any day now even in the absence of any evidence.

I think a nontrivial factor in Trump winning Orthodox Christians by landslide margins is Middle Eastern Christians resonating with GOP suspicion of Islam.

The Orthodox number was curious to me, because when I think of Orthodox Americans I think of Greeks, who might vote Republican on aggregate but certainly don't seem like an overwhelmingly Republican demographic (most of the Greek politicians who come to mind are Democrats). Your explanation makes sense in this regard.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

A ton of my family and relatives are Muslim, almost to the last man even now they'd be supportive of Biden being re-elected.
Muslims being this heavily Biden-voting would be not too surprising.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Probably the worst Mormon total for the Republicans in 40+ years.

[Continential]

Probably the worst Mormon total for the Republicans in 40+ years.

Wouldn't that be 2016?

[Vice President Christian Man]

Muslims being way more D than Hindus as late as 2020 is surprising to me.

I wouldn't assume that many Muslims would vote for a party that heavily persecuted them following 9/11 even if they're at odds on certain issues.

[Roll Roons]

Probably the worst Mormon total for the Republicans in 40+ years.

Wouldn't that be 2016?

Technically yes, but it's hard to compare because of McMullin. However, Biden's performance with Mormons was almost certainly the best of any Democrat since at least 1964 and I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to swing left next year.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I think a nontrivial factor in Trump winning Orthodox Christians by landslide margins is Middle Eastern Christians resonating with GOP suspicion of Islam.

The Orthodox number was curious to me, because when I think of Orthodox Americans I think of Greeks, who might vote Republican on aggregate but certainly don't seem like an overwhelmingly Republican demographic (most of the Greek politicians who come to mind are Democrats). Your explanation makes sense in this regard.

     Greeks are the largest ethnic bloc of Orthodox Christians in the United States, but their share is overall dwindling as they secularize and integrate. While anecdotal, I know a lot of Greek-American conservatives are angry at the Biden Administration for what they see as interfering with Church affairs. With more liberal Greeks increasingly going secular, I suspect they are mainly the ones staying in the pews.

Probably the worst Mormon total for the Republicans in 40+ years.

     I suspect Mormons eventually end up where the Mainlines are. Their culture puts too much emphasis on being friendly and agreeable to really cohere well with the attitude of the Trump GOP. Their leadership also seems to be trending liberal from what I've heard as an outsider.

[Aurelius2]

Can't blame him for lack of subdivision of the Jewish vote given that we're only 2% of the population all lumped together, but it would be really interesting to see the secular/Reform/Conservative/Orthodox breakdown. I'd guess around 75% D secular, 70% D Reform, 60% D Conservative, and 30% D Orthodox (probably breaking down into around 50% D for Modern Orthodox and 20% D for Haredi). Sephardic Judaism mostly exists outside of that structure, and if you also separate out Jews who identify as Sephardic I'd guess around 55% D.

[Sol]

Can't blame him for lack of subdivision of the Jewish vote given that we're only 2% of the population all lumped together, but it would be really interesting to see the secular/Reform/Conservative/Orthodox breakdown. I'd guess around 75% D secular, 70% D Reform, 60% D Conservative, and 30% D Orthodox (probably breaking down into around 50% D for Modern Orthodox and 20% D for Haredi). Sephardic Judaism mostly exists outside of that structure, and if you also separate out Jews who identify as Sephardic I'd guess around 55% D.

Aren't most Sephardim fairly conservative recent immigrants, or am I mistaken?

As an aside, there's an extremely old Sephardic community in Charleston which was until the early 1800s the largest Jewish community in the country. I had a teacher in Middle School who was actually a descendant of one of the founders of the first synagogue there.

[Aurelius2]

Can't blame him for lack of subdivision of the Jewish vote given that we're only 2% of the population all lumped together, but it would be really interesting to see the secular/Reform/Conservative/Orthodox breakdown. I'd guess around 75% D secular, 70% D Reform, 60% D Conservative, and 30% D Orthodox (probably breaking down into around 50% D for Modern Orthodox and 20% D for Haredi). Sephardic Judaism mostly exists outside of that structure, and if you also separate out Jews who identify as Sephardic I'd guess around 55% D.

Aren't most Sephardim fairly conservative recent immigrants, or am I mistaken?

As an aside, there's an extremely old Sephardic community in Charleston which was until the early 1800s the largest Jewish community in the country. I had a teacher in Middle School who was actually a descendant of one of the founders of the first synagogue there.

Like you allude to regarding Charleston, the oldest Jewish communities in the US are actually Sephardic. The first Jews in the US were Sephardic arrivals as early as the 17th century, then some German Jews started coming in the mid-1800s. Then when pogroms ramped up in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1800s, the Eastern European Ashkenazis who make up the majority of American Jews to this day began arriving en masse.

A lot of what we think of as Jewish stereotypes and culture are really specifically Ashkenazi stereotypes and culture. AFAIK the strong leftward tilt of Jewish politics is more specifically an Ashkenazi thing; that's part of (but not the whole of) why I suspect Sephardim are a bit less left-leaning.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Can't blame him for lack of subdivision of the Jewish vote given that we're only 2% of the population all lumped together, but it would be really interesting to see the secular/Reform/Conservative/Orthodox breakdown. I'd guess around 75% D secular, 70% D Reform, 60% D Conservative, and 30% D Orthodox (probably breaking down into around 50% D for Modern Orthodox and 20% D for Haredi). Sephardic Judaism mostly exists outside of that structure, and if you also separate out Jews who identify as Sephardic I'd guess around 55% D.

     A tweet in response to Ryan Burge actually talked about the breakdown among Jewish denominations:

https://twitter.com/rushinfive/status/1692555725766013120

     I don't know how well "no particular branch" tracks with secular Jews, but the split between Reform and Conservative on the one hand and Orthodox on the other is a bit wider than you had guessed. Overall pretty close though. I doubt I could be that accurate guessing voting splits among Orthodox Christian jurisdictions.

[Aurelius2]

Can't blame him for lack of subdivision of the Jewish vote given that we're only 2% of the population all lumped together, but it would be really interesting to see the secular/Reform/Conservative/Orthodox breakdown. I'd guess around 75% D secular, 70% D Reform, 60% D Conservative, and 30% D Orthodox (probably breaking down into around 50% D for Modern Orthodox and 20% D for Haredi). Sephardic Judaism mostly exists outside of that structure, and if you also separate out Jews who identify as Sephardic I'd guess around 55% D.

     A tweet in response to Ryan Burge actually talked about the breakdown among Jewish denominations:

https://twitter.com/rushinfive/status/1692555725766013120
     I don't know how well "no particular branch" tracks with secular Jews, but the split between Reform and Conservative on the one hand and Orthodox on the other is a bit wider than you had guessed. Overall pretty close though. I doubt I could be that accurate guessing voting splits among Orthodox Christian jurisdictions.

The fact that 'no particular branch' is *less* Dem than Reform makes me think it's a mix of seculars and Sephardim (though probably far more of the former than the latter).

I know that Iranian Jews are pretty Republican, and I imagine the same is true of other Mizrahi groups, but I'm not super familiar with Mizrahim so I couldn't tell you whether they follow Sephardi or Ashkenazi practices (Sephardi: all congregations are pretty traditional at the congregation itself but the members have the full spectrum of observantness in their day-to-day life, Ashkenazi: the familiar Reform/Conservative/Orthodox demarcations) or something else entirely.

I also wonder whether "Messianic Jews" were counted as Jews for the sake of the poll. I don't think there's many of them but I imagine they are overwhelmingly R, and even though  if they're going to self-identify as Jewish it's hard to screen them out of a survey like this regardless of the fact that they are universally considered to be Christians.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Silly me, I just noticed that "Jews of no religion" is its own line, at 77-19 D. Pretty wild though that they are slightly less Dem than Reform Jews. The difference is small enough though that it could just be statistical noise.

[jamestroll]

I think a nontrivial factor in Trump winning Orthodox Christians by landslide margins is Middle Eastern Christians resonating with GOP suspicion of Islam.

The Orthodox number was curious to me, because when I think of Orthodox Americans I think of Greeks, who might vote Republican on aggregate but certainly don't seem like an overwhelmingly Republican demographic (most of the Greek politicians who come to mind are Democrats). Your explanation makes sense in this regard.

     Greeks are the largest ethnic bloc of Orthodox Christians in the United States, but their share is overall dwindling as they secularize and integrate. While anecdotal, I know a lot of Greek-American conservatives are angry at the Biden Administration for what they see as interfering with Church affairs. With more liberal Greeks increasingly going secular, I suspect they are mainly the ones staying in the pews.

Probably the worst Mormon total for the Republicans in 40+ years.

     I suspect Mormons eventually end up where the Mainlines are. Their culture puts too much emphasis on being friendly and agreeable to really cohere well with the attitude of the Trump GOP. Their leadership also seems to be trending liberal from what I've heard as an outsider.

yes, I completely agree. If it were not for other INTERNAL counter trends in the state (Hispanics stagnating, drifting slightly and many transplants to Utah leaning more conservative Compared To Colorado), I would say Utah would be electing Democrats end of this decade. But that is unlikely to happen due to counter trends, but I could see a Ted Cruz 2018 happen there in 2028.


https://religionnews.com/2021/04/01/younger-u-s-mormons-voted-for-biden-but-trump-performed-well-overall/

This was an interesting read in 2021. I do believe it is close to reality. Younger Mormons were very likely a draw. Older mormons are just stuck in their ways and mostly see January 6th as justified.

 One challenge I see for Democrats and Mormons is gun ownership: A majority of Mormon  households own GUNS.