Catholics Siding With Hillary, Evangelicals With Trump

You are not signed in as a Premium user; you are viewing the free version of this program. Premium users have access to full-length programs with limited commercials and receive a 10% discount in the store! Sign up for only one day for the low cost of $1.99. Click the button below.

See All Plans

DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - A new poll reveals more Catholics side with Hillary Clinton while evangelical Christians back Donald Trump.

The Pew Research Center — an organization that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research and media content analysis — has found that 56 percent of Catholics support Hillary Clinton. As of June she holds a 17-point lead among Catholic voters with the majority of Latino Catholics in support of her. Only 28 percent of Protestants support Clinton.

Among weekly churchgoers, Clinton holds a 19-point lead over Trump — a much larger margin over the number of Catholics who supported Barack Obama in 2012.

The poll finds that if the election were held today, 78 percent of evangelical voters would vote for Trump. In fact the numbers for Trump exceed the support Evangelicals gave to Mitt Romney — who considers himself a religious Mormon — in the 2012 election.

In June, Trump formed an "evangelical advisory board" and held a summit at Liberty University at which one of the leaders declared Trump was "born again."

The evangelical fervor for Trump, however, isn't entirely because they think he's Christian. Even though Trump has made an effort to court the evangelical vote, he has never really portrayed himself as a "religious" man. A Pew poll from January showed the majority of evangelical republicans don't consider him pious, with 44 percent considering him "not too" or "not at all" religious.

Despite that, a recent poll by Quinnipiac University shows abortion, religion and faith are at the bottom of people's priorities in this election, whether they be for Trump or Clinton, whether Catholic, evangelical or one of the "nones," or religiously unaffiliated.

The poll finds "caring about people," "leadership" and "integrity" five times more important than the candidate's religion. The poll also shows that the environment is one of the most important issue to Catholics in this election.

Catholics also consider immigration reform to be a foremost issue. With American bishops promoting immigration over other traditional moral issues like contraception, abortion and marriage issues, it's easy to see why Catholics are focusing on immigration and the environment. Catholic Charities and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has raked in billions of federal dollars to support immigration. It was reported last year that in 2014 the USCCB received over $80 million for its migration fund alone.

Have a news tip? Submit news to our tip line.

We rely on you to support our news reporting. Please donate today.