“Trump is toast.”
So proclaimed National Review’s Andrew McCarthy after essentially the most shocking Republican Party flop since, oh, 1948, which was followed by the least shocking Republican event possible, Donald Trump’s Tuesday announcement of a 3rd run for president.
McCarthy joins a big lineup of conservative pundits and media in blaming the GOP’s embarrassment on Trump and his demands for 2020 election denial with resulting candidate picks. Democrats took the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area by 12.8%, for goodness sake. The previous federal prosecutor contends that Trump has not only surrendered his 2024 probabilities but is for certain to face federal indictment.
Well, irrespective of what such elite conservatives suppose, Trump retains an enormous grassroots following. Nonetheless, the primary post-election poll of Republicans and Republican leaners, from YouGov, put Florida Governor Ron DeSantis because the 2024 front-runner with 42% to Trump’s 35%. A month earlier YouGov gave Trump 45% vs. DeSantis’s 35%. A poll of Texas Republicans was similar.
An intriguing Wall Street Journal package recently offered scholars’ speculations on what Russia will appear like in the long run every time Vladimir Putin’s reign ends. The media could borrow the concept to explore what the American religion landscape might appear like when Donald Trump not rules the Republicans, whether that’s within the primaries or Election Day 2024, or Inauguration Day 2029.
In case you grab the theme, also run this one past your sources: Has this secularized, former Mainline Protestant and onetime “reality” TV personality had more impact on American religion than any member of the clergy during these years?
Other assorted post-election musings.
As GetReligion often observes, Catholics are the swing vote to look at, since white evangelicals are locked into lopsided Republican loyalty (this long before the Trump years). The networks’ Edison Research exit poll showed white “born-again or evangelical” voters went 83% Republican for the U.S. House. No Catholic data were broken out, but here’s one distinguished Catholic conservative’s pre-election scenario.
What we’d like now — talking to you, Pew Research Center — is a religiously savvy poll with a big enough sample to reliably break out white evangelicals, non-evangelical Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics and the growing non-religious and anti-religious population.
Who wants Trump 2024? Biden 2024?
Most significant, what aspects drive those opinions? Do they vary by whether church attendance is weekly, occasional or non-existent? Edison Research also reported that voters who never attend worship, so vital to the Democrats’ coalition, backed the party by 66% while the GOP won the an identical majority amongst weekly attenders. That’s a news story.
(This turf can be capably surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute, whose President Robert P. Jones is understood for writing “The End of White Christian America.” But Pew has a fuller track record and higher probabilities to beat conservatives’ reluctance on poll participation.)
To state the apparent: Pro-life religionists and politicians have to thoroughly rethink tactics now that the Supreme Court has returned abortion decision-making back to Congress and the states. The query that GetReligion has been asking: Who’re the politicos in each party who’re willing to debate “purple” state compromises on this issue? Will the Democrats, particularly, hearken to Democrats who oppose abortion on demand?
Democrats consolidated their grip on Jewish voters at 74%, based on a poll by the liberal J Street. This election produced a latest Jewish star, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor-elect Joshua Shapiro, who scored a 14% margin over a Trumpy “Christian nationalist.” Fairly like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew nominated for vice chairman, Shapiro is not any mere ethnic Jew but an openly observant member of Judaism’s left-of-center Conservative branch.
Though Pennsylvania Republican Mehmet Oz lost his bid to be the primary ethnic Muslim within the U.S. Senate, this was a giant 12 months for Muslim candidates. A record 82 won races, compared with 71 in 2020. In all, 146 Muslims ran for federal, state, local or judicial office, including 51 for state legislative seats in 23 states. Those tallies come from the familiar Council on American-Islamic Relations and younger JET-PAC. The second group “seeks to construct a powerful American Muslim political infrastructure” (contact Executive Director Mohammed Missouri or 626–538–7221).
In such a narrowly-divided body politic, the Democratic and Republican Parties are increasingly hard left and hard right while myriad Independents and moderates are alienated from each and these voters normally determine who wins elections. What does this say about cultural strategies for churches beset by growing cultural resistance?
More Poli Sci 101. How did pollsters perform?
Obsessives with the time and inclination can see in granular detail corporations’ forecasts in RealClearPolitics data. Whether with politics or religion, always remember a poll’s “margin of error,” which the media should underscore and too rarely do. If the M.O,E. in a 2022 poll was plus or minus 3 points, a 51% GOP vs., 49% Democrats poll could mean the actual lead was 54%R or 52%D.
FIRST IMAGE: One in every of dozens of Donald Trump 2024 flags on the market online.
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