“The evangelicals love me,” Trump said countless times during the presidential campaign. “And I love them,” he would sometimes add, less convincingly.
Aided by key endorsements by evangelical leaders such as Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. and megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, Trump won over millions of religious voters throughout the last year.
Many evangelicals were dismayed by Trump, a man who said he’d never asked for God’s forgiveness and seemed, as a petty, profane and self-promoting narcissist, to personify the seven deadly sins. Even many of those evangelicals who ended up supporting him were slow to warm to his candidacy, preferring Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio in the Republican primaries.
In January, Trump lost the evangelical-heavy Iowa caucuses to Cruz. And in April, just before Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, Pew found that only 42 percent of evangelicals supported him.
Hillary Clinton had a harder hill to climb with religious voters. Clinton’s positions on abortion, marriage and religious liberty are anathema to many regular churchgoers. Clinton emphasized her Methodist faith at times during the campaign, and selected as a running mate, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a former altar boy who had spent a year in Honduras as a missionary and often touted his faith.
But in the end religious voters came around to Trump, and voted for him in droves. According to exit polls, he won 81 percent of evangelical voters, who made up 26 percent of the electorate, while Clinton took just 16 percent.
Trump also won Catholics (52 percent to 45 percent), Protestants (58 percent to 39 percent), Mormons (61 percent to 25 percent) and other Christians (55 percent to 43 percent).
Trump’s strength among Catholics is particularly noteworthy, as Obama won them in 2008 and 2012.
Trump won 56 percent of weekly or more churchgoers, compared to Clinton’s 40 percent. By comparison, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney won 59 percent of voters who went to church weekly or more, and 2008 nominee John McCain won 55 percent of them. In 2004, 61 percent of these voters cast their ballots for George W. Bush.
One caveat is that fewer religious voters turned out this year. Thirty-three percent of voters Tuesday said they attend church at least weekly. In 2012, weekly churchgoers were 42 percent of the electorate.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
