President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents are courting voters with less than a year before the 2020 election, and many of them are chasing support from a variety of religious voters — in pews on the right and the left.

For example, all eyes are on Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his attempts to build trust with African-American churchgoers — a crucial part of the Democratic Party base in the Sunbelt and elsewhere. We will return to that subject.

But first, the Trump campaign announced recently that the president's re-election efforts would include launching three coalitions: “Evangelicals for Trump,” “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.”

Despite being impeached by the House, the Trump campaign’s focus on these three religious groups aims to expand the president’s support, especially in battleground states where the former real-estate mogul won in 2016.

An analysis of the 2018 midterm elections conducted by Pew Research Center found continuity in the voting patterns of key religious groups. For example, white evangelicals voted for Republican candidates at about the same rate they did in 2014, while religiously unaffiliated voters and Jews again largely backed Democrats.

There’s plenty that Trump and the crowded field of Democrats challenging him have done over the past few months, and are continuing to do as we head into 2020, to court religious voters. Expect that to intensify with the start of the primaries next years and in the months before November’s general election.

Below is a look at Trump’ efforts, along with those of the seven Democrats who qualified for the next debate on Thursday night in Los Angeles.  

Donald Trump

Mark Galli, the editor-in-chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, has argued that Trump should be removed from office. In an editorial following Trump's impeachment, Galli said the case put together by Democrats had been convincing.

Nonetheless, the Trump campaign is hoping evangelicals, Catholics and Jews — especially those on the conservative end of the political spectrum — are swayed by the president’s judicial appointments, pro-life record and stance regarding religious freedom. Despite rhetoric his opponents have called anti-Semitic, Trump’s unwavering support for Israel (a position reiterated by Vice President Mike Pence, who calls himself an “evangelical Catholic,” is also viewed as a plus among evangelicals and Jews.

Overall, Christians — especially white voters that included evangelicals and Catholics — supported Trump in the last election. Trump has looked to lock in those voters through a number of initiatives, including hiring his personal pastor, the Rev. Paula White, who recently joined the White House in an official role as an adviser. In 2016, Catholic advisers like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway helped craft Trump’s message. Bannon is no longer working for Trump.  

Joe Biden

It was in September that Biden, a Catholic and frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination, reversed himself following his decades-long support for restricting federal funding of abortions. The decision, part of a larger move within the party by all candidates to shift left, will hurt the former vice president with pro-life Catholics.

Christians, particularly those living in the Midwest, are seen as key voter bloc for Biden if he hopes to win the party’s nomination and the general election. Although he has no official religious outreach effort at the moment, Biden is targeting the Catholic vote (he’d be the first Roman Catholic elected to the White House since John F. Kennedy) after an appearance last month in Dubuque, Iowa, a historically Catholic town on the Mississippi River. Biden was also denied Holy Communion last month in South Carolina, a sign of the growing doctrinal rift within Catholicism. A recent poll of Catholics showed that he could get the majority of their vote in a hypothetical matchup against Trump.

Pete Buttigieg

Aside from Booker, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is the other Democrat who hasn’t shied away from faith and religious language. He’s openly courted religious voters, especially those on the political left at the start of the primaries. Buttigieg, who is gay, has had a difficult time with African-American voters, particularly more religious ones in the South.  

“Mayor Pete” regularly quotes from the Bible during campaign stops and debates to back up his policies. Buttigieg was also the first Democratic presidential candidate to hire a faith outreach coordinator, an effort meant to reach beyond the Democratic base.

Continue reading “What U.S. presidential candidates will be doing to court religious voters” by Clemente Lisi, at Religion UnPlugged.