Against all odds -- and against the information in polls -- Donald Trump-era Republicans had a pretty good year in ballot boxes.

A norm-bashing president won 47.6% of the popular vote, came fairly close in the Electoral College, and apparently carried 24 of the 50 states. The GOP has a good shot at a Senate majority, with the two Georgia runoffs on Jan. 5. Gains in the U.S. House give it 48% of the seats. The party added to its majority among governors and its crucial grass-roots advantage in chambers and seats in state legislatures. 

Pondering such results, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni confessed that mainstream media colleagues "keep being blinded by our own arrogance" while "extrapolating from our own perceptions."

You think? Among the varied factors shaping U.S. politics, Democrats and the media often muff religion's influence in the flyover turf between the Delaware River and Sierra Nevada mountains and reaching south to the border.

Job One for pundits and political consultants will be figuring why Joe Biden carried 63% of Hispanics as a whole, but Trumpublicans ate into their Democratic margins in Florida and Texas.

A Washington Post 1,800-worder depicted the remarkable red shift along the Texas border with Mexico — but merely hinted at the impact of religious networking and such issues as abortion, including Protestants as well as Catholics. GetReligion has been covering that trend for four years of more. Here’s two sample posts: “Concerning Hispanic evangelicals, secret Trump voters and white evangelical women in Georgia” and “New podcast: Whoa! An old religion-beat story heated up the politics of Florida in 2020.”

One MSM figure who gets it is Richard Just, editor of the Washington Post Magazine, who has been exploring his Reform Judaism more seriously in recent years. He wrote Oct. 28 that "religion is fundamentally a mystery" and a profound source of "existential uncertainty" that can "value, even celebrate, contradictions" and thereby overcome the nasty divisiveness that imperils American democracy. 

Liberal Judaism is the opposite of the dogmatic certainty seen in the nation's closely-divided politics, right and left, and in religions' partisan involvements. Religion writers will recognize that in the generality successful faiths preserve a dogmatic core, and should ask sources how politicians and judges should understand and respect this reality — honoring the First Amendment — while simultaneously fostering mutual tolerance in a pluralistic society.

As reporters ponder 2020, start from the polling over the eight days through Nov. 3 by Associated Press VoteCast (in cooperation with Fox News, NPR, PBS, Univision, USA Today, Wall Street Journal). There's understandable skepticism about polls, but this one,  aided by the University of Chicago's NORC, was conducted in both English and Spanish with a sizable sample of 110,485 voters, allowing  religious breakdowns and a tiny margin of error. Full tabulations here. 

White evangelicals typically dominate political coverage. Yes, they're the largest religious bloc, with 23% of voters, and some statistics say that niche went 81% for Trump, the same as in 2016. News flash: White evangelicals vote for Republicans, for a variety of reasons. They may dislike Latter-day Saint doctrines but gave Mitt Romney 78%, and handed John McCain 74% despite his potshots at the "religious right," preceded by 78% for George W. Bush. Many evangelicals believe that they have no other realistic options, especially in an era in which many politicians and journalists have but the old-liberal term “religious liberty” inside “scare” quotes.

Meanwhile, the journalists need to pay more attention to this generation's two big trends. Those with no religious affiliation ("nones") were 21% of 2020 voters (below their growing share of the overall population) and nearly cancelled out Trump's  white evangelicals, going 72% for Biden. Voters who never attend religious services favored Biden by 63% (while those worshiping monthly or more often gave Trump 59%). The “pew gap” is alive and well.

Trend number two is the way white Catholics have consolidated as an important sector of the Republican coalition. GetReligion has tracked this closely. In 2020, white Catholics were 16% of voters and favored Trump by a solid 57%, much as they did in 2016. This in an election that made Biden the second Catholic president in U.S. history. When Hispanics are added in, Catholics gave an even split to Biden and Trump. 

Religion News Service offers a really useful piece profiling a dozen potential religion advisors for President Biden. Given the importance of Catholic votes for Democratic hopes, it's notable that the only Catholic listed is Sister Simone Campbell. This leader of Network and "Nuns on the Bus" personifies the activist left, not the middle America that will decide  elections. Reporters might also examine Trump's reliance on a particular brand of evangelicals rather than concerted cultivation of Catholic influencers. 

Reporters seeking a big-think item might consider a controversial book out next week, "American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time" by Georgetown professor of government Joshua Mitchell. He thinks the "implosion" of mainline churches that floated toward sunny self-affirmation has sent a version of original sin into the new quasi-religion of "identity politics" that lacks God or forgiveness. Run that one past your favorite theological sources.

By the way, this is not a religion story in the usual sense but — even while Kamala Harris was making history as the first female vice president — married women nationwide favored Trump by 52% against 47% for the Biden-Harris ticket. Single women gave Biden a lopsided 62%.