New Survey Reveals Differing Religious Beliefs of Trump, Biden Voters

Arizona Christian University’s polling arm, The Cultural Research Center, headed up by renowned pollster George Barna, conducted a 2020 post-election survey to investigate the religious faith and attitudes of voters in last November’s presidential election. In the latest analysis just released – Barna’s fourth in a series since November – he looks at the differences between Biden and Trump voters.

His conclusion? People who voted for President Joe Biden hold different views on many biblical mandates than those who voted for former President Donald Trump. He concludes that “although nearly two-thirds (65%) of [Biden] voters consider themselves to be Christian, many of their religious beliefs and policy positions are at odds with the views of most Americans and with traditional biblical teaching.”

The first difference Barna notes is that in contrast to Biden voters, 80% of Trump voters identified as Christian.

On the issue of whether absolute moral truths exist and are defined in the Bible, only 25% of Biden voters believe that, as compared to 43% of Trump voters.

Is marriage between a man and a woman God’s only acceptable plan for humanity? Forty-two percent of Biden voters agree, as compared to 69% of Trump voters.

When asked, “Is God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect and just creator of the universe who still rules that universe today,” 37% of those who voted for Biden and 60% of those who voted for Trump  agreed.

Biden voters were more likely than Trump voters to believe that all faiths are of equal value, 68% to 58%. They were less likely than Trump voters to identify as “theologically conservative,” 25% to 42%.

It should come as no surprise that the survey also revealed differences in the voting patterns of those who belong to different faiths. According to Barna:

The post-election survey noted that Mr. Trump won most of the votes cast by adults who usually attend Protestant churches while Mr. Biden won overwhelming majorities of the votes from people aligned with non-Christian faiths (e.g., Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.). Among Protestant churchgoers Mr. Trump won 47% of the vote compared to 33% for Mr. Biden. (Most of the rest of those attending Protestant churches did not vote.) Catholics gave Mr. Biden a slim 44%-40% margin of preference.

The first report in the series by the Cultural Research Center based on the 2020 post-election survey examined the voting patterns of politically and spiritually engaged Christians. From the data, Barna concluded that 99% of what he calls Spiritually Active Governance Engaged Conservative Christians, or SAGE Cons, voted in the 2020 election, and 97% voted for Trump. Barna estimates that SAGE Cons comprise 9% of the adult population, but 14% of the voting public, for an estimated 23 million voters.

The second report found issues of common ground between Biden and Trump voters, such as the desire to increase manufacturing jobs, reduce the national debt, reduce income taxes, repair the nation’s infrastructure, make Social Security and Medicare financially solvent, and expand school choice.

The third report concluded that voters’ interest in socialism is waning.

The online survey was conducted from November 4 – 16, 2020, using a demographically balanced sampling of 1000 adults.

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