Catholics and evangelicals in battleground states are swinging toward Joe Biden, a survey found, as the former vice president’s campaign makes a moral case against President Trump.
The survey, commissioned by the left-leaning group Vote Common Good and conducted in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, found that a majority of people view Biden as more personally reflective of Christian values than Trump. The group, which has run outreach for Biden, hopes that Trump’s perceived “lack of kindness” will convince more voters to translate their personal distaste into a vote for Biden, VCG Executive Director Doug Pagitt said.
“Four years ago, many religious voters decided to look the other way and give Trump a chance, but after witnessing his cruelty and corruption, some of them are searching for an off-ramp,” he said.
The survey found that more than half of people think that Biden is more “virtuous” than Trump and that Trump is more “sinful” than Biden. It comes after a series of polls showing a slippage in support, especially among evangelicals, of whom Trump needs a massive majority to win.
In the past few months, the Biden campaign has aggressively pursued religious votes, many of whom pushed Trump to victory in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016. The campaign launched several faith coalitions and, at the Democratic National Convention, repeatedly highlighted Biden’s Catholicism, with the candidate testifying to his own personal faith.
The Trump campaign responded by attacking Biden’s faith as hypocritical, pointing to the candidate’s longstanding support for abortion and his promise to renew litigation against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns that recently won a Supreme Court battle against an Obama-era contraception mandate.
Trump himself has attacked Biden personally, saying that if elected, the former vice president would “hurt God” and “hurt the Bible.”
At the same time, Trump boosters have hammered Biden’s support for abortion, in an effort to retain Trump’s wavering support with evangelicals and Catholics, many of whom are single-issue voters in terms of opposing abortion.
Abortion poses a significant issue for Biden’s overtures toward people of faith. At a campaign event on Wednesday, Biden surrogate Rev. Carolyn Davis said that in attempting to peel off suburban evangelical women, abortion is one of their top “sticking points.” But for many of these women, she said, if abortion were not such a contentious issue, Biden would be the clear choice.
“I hear again and again that women are sick and tired of hearing their faith used to try to draw them over and keep them beholden to policies that separate families, to policies that justify violence, to policies that advance white supremacy,” she said of Trump’s leadership. “They’re becoming sick in their souls at continuing to stay allied with these policies and allied with these leaders.”
At the same event, Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, made the case that the best way the campaign can combat Trump’s charges is to play up the “stark moral contrast” between the two’s personal characters.
“It’s about healing redemption of our country and of our world,” she said of Biden’s campaign. “My dad knows that, and there’s no one better to lead us forward.”
