<p>In fact, with 80% of white evangelicals backing Trump in 2020, support actually ticked up from the 78% who voted for him four years earlier. Trump also saw two-point increases in the vote of nonwhite evangelicals, white Catholics, Black Protestants and Jews compared with four years ago.</p><p>These differences are not statistically significant, and as such it would be wrong to say it definitively shows Trump gained among religious groups. But it indicates that among the largest religious groups in the U.S., voting patterns in the November 2020 vote seemed to hold largely steady with four years earlier. Trump did not manage to win significantly larger shares, nor was winner Joe Biden able to peel away religious voters from the Trump coalition.</p><p><strong>Losing the nonreligious</strong></p><p>However, there are some interesting and statistically significant trends when you break down the data further. Nonwhite Catholics shifted four points toward Donald Trump. This fits with what we saw in places like the <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/miamidadecountyflorida/PST045219" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">heavily Hispanic</a> and <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/miami-metro-area/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Catholic</a> Miami-Dade County, Florida, where Trump's <a href="https://www.nwfdailynews.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/elections-compare-florida-vote-president-2016-2020/6156532002/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">overall vote share improved</a> from 35% to 46% between 2016 and 2020.</p><p>Trump also managed to pick up 15 percentage points among the Mormon vote. On first glance this would appear a large jump. But it makes sense when you factor in that around <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/07/25/mormon-voting-patterns-in-the-2016-election-a-comprehensive-analysis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">15% of the Mormon vote</a> in 2016 <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/utah-mormon-vote-mcmullin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">went to Utah native and fellow Mormon Evan McMullin</a>, who ran in that year's election as a third-party candidate. Without McMullin in 2020, Trump picked up Mormon voters – as did Joe Biden, who did slightly better than Hillary Clinton had among Mormons.</p><p>There is also some weak evidence that the Republican candidate picked up some support among smaller religious groups in the U.S., like Hindus and Buddhists. Trump increased his share among these two groups by four percentage points each. But it is important to note that these two groups combined <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">constitute only about 1.5% of the American population</a>. As such, a four-point increase translates to only a very small fraction of the overall popular vote.</p><p>What is clear is that Trump <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2021/04/06/the-2020-vote-for-president-by-religious-groups-the-nones/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">lost a good amount of ground among the religious unaffiliated</a>. Trump's share of the atheist vote declined from 14% in 2016 to just 11% in 2020; the decline among agnostics was slightly larger, from 23% to 18%.</p><p>Additionally, those who identify as "<a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/07/03/rise-of-the-nothing-in-particulars-may-be-sign-of-a-disjointed-disaffected-and-lonely-future/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nothing in particular</a>" — a group that represents 21% of the overall U.S. population — were not as supportive of Trump in his re-election bid. His vote share among this group dropped by three percentage points, while Biden's rose by more than seven points, with the Democrat managing to win over many of the "nothing in particulars" who had backed third-party candidates in the 2016 election.</p><p>Looked at broadly, Trump did slightly better among Christians and other smaller religious groups in the U.S. but lost ground among the religiously unaffiliated. What these results cannot account for, however, is record turnout. There were nearly <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">22 million more votes</a> cast in 2020 than in 2016. So while vote shares may not have changed that much, the number of votes cast helped swing the election for the Democratic candidate. A more detailed breakdown of voter turnout is due to be released in July 2021 by the team that administers the Cooperative Election Study; that will bring the picture of religion and the 2020 vote into clearer focus.</p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ryan-burge-1193069" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ryan Burge</a>, Assistant Professor of Political Science, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/eastern-illinois-university-4998" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eastern Illinois University</a></em></p>
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