Over the weekend, I had an email conversation with Tom Edsall of the New York Times. I’m thankful for Edsall as a reporter who asks big, thorny questions and gives ample space in his column for complicated answers from scholars and experts.
On Friday, I received an email from Edsall with this question (paraphrased): Given all the data trends showing the decline of religiously observant Americans, the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans, strong Democratic support among young voters, and the decline in the share of white working-class Americans, why hasn’t there been a bigger shift toward the Democratic Party?
Robert P. Jones (Photo by Noah Willman)
You can, and should, read all of Edsall’s column titled, “Is the Surge to the Left Among Young Voters a Trump Blip or the Real Deal?” In addition to my response, Edsall includes data-informed perspectives on this perplexing question from many leading researchers: Brian Schaffner (Tufts University), Geoffrey Layman (Notre Dame University), Ryan Burge (Eastern Illinois University), Adam Bonica (Stanford University), Jacob Grumbach (University of Washington), and William Frey (Brookings Institution).
Edsall opens the column with a key finding from PRRI’s Census of American Religion: “By 2022, according to the Public Religion Research Institute (better known as PRRI), the percentage of white evangelicals had fallen to 13.6%, while those with little or no interest in religion and more progressive inclinations had surged to 26.8% of the population.”
Edsall included this explanation of the paradox from me, which draws upon and extends trends I first documented in my 2016 book, The End of White Christian America:
Robert Jones, founder and president of PRRI, pointed out by email that both white Protestant and white Catholic Christians punch well above their weight on Election Day: “Key white Christian subgroups — which strongly supported Trump and Republicans — were significantly overrepresented in the electorate compared to their proportion of the population.”
He cited poll data that showed: 1) White evangelicals: proportion of population in 2020, 14%, proportion of voters, 22%. 2) White Catholics: proportion of population in 2020, 12%, proportion of voters, 16%.
In contrast, Jones wrote, nonreligious voters are somewhat underrepresented on Election Day: “Religiously unaffiliated: proportion of population in 2020, 23%, proportion of voters, 21%.”
“White Christians are, in effect, engaged in a herculean struggle to maintain political power.”
White Christians are, in effect, engaged in a herculean struggle to maintain political power.
“As recently as 2008, when our first Black president was elected, the U.S. was a majority (54%) white Christian country,” Jones wrote. “By 2014, that proportion had dropped to 47%. Today, the 2022 Census of American Religion shows that figure has dropped further to 42%.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, Jones continued, “the largest white evangelical denomination, has now lost more than 3 million members since its peak in the early 2000s.”
In every column, there are always interesting things left on the cutting room floor. I’ll close by sharing my larger reflections on these countervailing trends, which didn’t make it into print:
One way of thinking about our current situation is to see the ballot box as a kind of time machine. The voting landscape favors Republicans, allowing a group that matches the demographics of 20 years ago to govern the America of today.
While these dynamics allow the GOP to hold onto short-term victories, they are resulting in a palpable sense of minority rule at both the national and state levels, as policies and laws (such as efforts to ban abortion, overturn LGBTQ rights and hinder an honest reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy in our country) are increasingly out of step with majority public opinion.
Looking ahead to the future, you can also see this contrast in the ethnographic-religious composition of our two political parties. In terms of its racial and religious composition, the Democratic Party looks like 20-year-old America, while the Republican Party looks like 80-year-old America. The current course does not look promising as a long-term strategy for Republicans.
Robert P. Jones is CEO and founder of PRRI and the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award.
This column originally appeared on Robert P. Jones’s substack #WhiteTooLong.
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