By Clemente Lisi
Senior Editor
Religion Unplugged
Latino Evangelicals Help Trump Win in Florida
You heard a lot about white evangelicals helping Trump in 2016 (and they did again this year, although in slightly lower numbers), but it was Hispanics — some 3.1 million voters — across Florida who helped the president win big in the Sunshine State.
It’s true that Latinos in general did help Trump (for example, Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County), the Hispanic evangelical vote mattered, as GetReligion recently pointed out. NBC News exit polling revealed that 55% of the state’s Cuban-American vote went to Trump, while 30% of Puerto Ricans and 48% of “other Latinos” backed the president.
The Latinos for Trump coalition kicked off in June 2019, with the president’s campaign launching “Evangelicals for Trump” from a megachurch in South Florida called El Rey Jesus. It’s the largest evangelical church in the country and with a majority Latino congregation. The move paid off big time for the president.
Catholic Vote Makes a Difference (But for Whom?)
The Catholic vote mattered once again in this election cycle. Biden, who is looking to be the first Catholic president since 1960, spent the past few months courting faith voters. Trump, in turn, also pursued the Catholic vote in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Catholic vote usually decides the Presidential election. This year the exit polls for Catholics all have @JoeBiden under water. This is curious given @realDonaldTrump‘s vote count in the rust belt.
New York Times: Trump 68%
AP: Trump 46%
NBC: Trump 66% pic.twitter.com/whJyYlldZU— Raymond Arroyo (@RaymondArroyo) November 4, 2020
The Catholic vote, according to The Associated Press, seems to be evenly split — 49% going for Trump and 49% for Biden. NBC News, however, offered contradictory numbers — 37% of Catholics voting for Biden and a whopping 62% for Trump.
A EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll from last month found Catholics favoring Biden by a 12-point margin (53% to 41%) over Trump. The president did better with Catholics who regularly attend Mass.
Louisiana Votes to Limit Abortions, While Colorado Goes the Other Way
The national races affected local politics as well, where faith voters played an important role depending on geography. It should also be no surprise that abortion remains an issue.
Voters in Louisiana, for example, approved a constitutional amendment to prevent state courts from finding a “right to abortion” — that is public funding of abortion — in the state’s constitution. In Colorado, 59% of voters instead defeated a proposal to ban late-term abortion starting at 22 weeks.
Louisiana’s Amendment 1 passed with a 64% margin, Catholic News Agency reported, and will result in the updating of the Louisiana constitution to say that “nothing in this constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
Washington Approves Requiring Sex Ed in Schools
Despite staunch opposition from Catholic bishops, Washington state’s politically progressive voters — a majority of whom backed Biden — passed a ballot measure by nearly 60% calling for “comprehensive sex education” in public schools.
In their effort to thwart the measure, the state’s Catholic bishops cited the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes, which calls for the right of parents to “educate their children in the bosom of the family.”
At least 29 states require public schools to teach sex education, but the National Conference of State Legislatures said the issue had never before appeared on a statewide ballot, a move that ultimately backfired on conservative Christians. The measure’s passing was further proof of the declining influence of faith voters in blue states.
Muslims Vote in Record Numbers
The electorate is constantly changing in the United States. The latest proof? An estimated one million American Muslims voted in this election, with exit polls showing that 69% of them going for Biden.
The exit polling, conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, found that Muslim voters turned out in “record-breaking numbers.” Many of those voters are based in the battleground states of Michigan and Minnesota. Both of them went for Biden this year.
“CAIR would like to thank the more than one million American Muslim voters who turned out in record-breaking numbers this election cycle,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “The Muslim community’s significant ability to impact the results of numerous races across this country — including the presidential election — was recognized nationally by candidates and the media.”
Originally published by Religion Unplugged, 11.14.2020, republished with permission.