Why The Majority Of Christians Voted For Donald Trump

Gage Skidmore is licensed under  CC BY 2.0
Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY 2.0
An analysis of what may have driven so many Christians to vote for Donald Trump, and how people from other faiths voted.

Although experts suggested that after the leaked video showing Trump speaking in vulgar and obscene terms about women surfaced he would lose favor with the Christians, in reality the majority of America’s Christian population voted for Trump. More than 80 percent white evangelicals and 60 percent white Catholics voted for the Republican candidate. This may come as a shock to most people, especially to those who believed that Christians would not vote for a candidate who may be perceived as un-Christian in his behavior.

Why The Majority Of Christians Voted For Donald Trump.[/tweetthis]

Perhaps one of the main reasons Christians voted for Trump in large numbers was his attitude against abortion, according to The Atlantic. Although he himself once supported abortion, Trump made a complete U-turn in his attitude so that more recently he has been talking about introducing strict policies to curb abortion. For a staunch Christian, abortion is one of the most important issues on which one can never take a compromising stand. Needless to say, Clinton, who showed a more accepting attitude towards abortion, was seen as a threat to the unborn by the religious. In fact, some Christians even believed Clinton would appoint judges who support abortion.

With rising Islamophobia in the nation, the Trump campaign tapped into fear by launching anti-immigration attacks on Muslims, proposing a ban on all Muslims. For some citizens, this deepened the belief that Muslims are spreading terror in the nation. The fear that their culture and religion is under threat may also have driven Christians at large to cast their vote for a candidate whom they saw as capable of curbing this problem.

Religious makeup of the electorate

While Catholics and Protestants in general were almost split between Trump and Clinton, most non-Christians voted for Clinton. This includes Jews at 71 percent, other faiths at 62 percent and religiously unaffiliated at 68 percent. These figures represent minorities such as Muslims, Hindus and others. The  majority of Hispanic Catholics voted for Clinton, which could be attributed to Trump’s threats against Hispanic Americans.

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