An 11 percentage point swing toward Joe Biden among evangelicals and Catholics who backed President Donald Trump in 2016 is predicted in a new poll by Vote Common Good.
According to Politico, the poll is based on input from both demographics across the 2020 battleground states of Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The full poll results are expected to be released on Thursday.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Evangelical voters are split over whether Trump or Biden is the most virtuous.
- Catholic voters selected Biden as the most virtuous by a 21-point margin over Trump.
- 44% of respondents said Biden is kinder than Trump, compared to 30% who said Trump is kinder. It was cited as the leading cause of defections among evangelicals and Catholics who supported Trump in 2016.
"While it was baked in back in 2016 that Donald Trump was bombastic and crude, he always hinted that he would be presidential when he needed to be presidential," said Doug Pagitt, a pastor and the executive director of Vote Common Good.
He noted some of the 2016 religious Trump voters have since "woken up to the fact that [Trump] has not changed one bit."
The poll, conducted Aug. 11-26, surveyed 1,430 self-described evangelicals and Catholics in the five swing states. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a Pew Research survey conducted earlier this year found 35% of white evangelicals said Trump is "not too" religious or "not at all religious." Fifty-two percent said he was "somewhat religious."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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