9mo ago

Millions of Christians not planning to vote this November, could shape election: Study

www.dailykos.com

Just over half of interviewees (51%) in a Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University study, who identified as "people of faith," responded that they are likely to vote in the presidential election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The "people of faith" label is given to those who identify with a recognized religion, such as Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism or Islam.

The study found that approximately 104 million people under the "people of faith" umbrella are not expected to vote this election, including 41 million born-again Christians and 32 million who regularly go to church.

87 comments

Anecdotal, but there was considerable dissatisfaction and exhaustion with Trump amongst the religious in my hometown back in 2020. Most of them still supported and voted for him, but that any peeled off was novel. Not that they'd ever vote Dem, but simply not voting GOP in a presidential election was a big deal. It's not inconceivable that the number has increased since.
- Perhaps one or two could even be convinced to support the party that advocates for charity, kindness and goodwill to the poor. Responsible stewardship of gods creation. Openness to forgiveness and redemption for criminals. Treating your neighbors well. Just generally doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, even when you do not fully understand them.
  
  Let's not get crazy
  
  but abortion
  
  They're fine with charity as long as they decide who is deserving of the money. They love government handouts as long as they are going to Christofascist pursuits. Just as Jesus taught us, I guess.
  
  There is no such party in the US.
  The best you can get is the "Let's make the rich richer by avoiding equality like the plague and never undoing the regressive measures from the Other Party whilst claiming to be charitable" Party.
  It's still better than the "Let's kill everybody not like me" Party, but lets not try and deceive people with the preposterous fantasy that they're actual Good Guys rather than Not Quite As Bad Guys.
  
  Too bad no such party exists. Many will claim some of that, but their actions show it is false.
Get out and vote.
- If they get write-in ballots, maybe write "Jesus Christ."
  
  "Votes for Jesus go to the Republican."
  Leslie Knope
“Christians” is doing some heavy lifting in this headline
- Seriously, though. “Christians” includes anyone within the net of the Abrahamic religions? This is the widest cast of people possible makes everything said after the title insignificant.
  What might be significant, though, is the Muslim population that is disappointed in Harris for not taking a harder stance against Israel, and has threatened not to vote at all.
  Personally, I think it’s asinine to avoid a vote because the options are between someone who is not taking a hard line against Israel, and another who is on the record saying that Israel should “finish the job”, but then… I’m not a single-issue voter, so these things affect me differently.
  
  I'm not Muslim, but if my options were to vote for someone who wants to kill my family vs someone who won't stop selling weapons to those who are actively killing my family, I can understand why they wouldn't be super excited at those choices.
- Not really, if you look at the history of Christianity, they’re right on brand. You’re just accustomed to an odd kind of “Christianity-lite” that manifested over the past century of so, mostly to keep the religion alive as it risked being left in the dust by social progress.
I skimmed the study itself but couldn't find how this compares to 2020 turnout of the same group. Just that it's "lower" and has a +/- of 4% margin.
Can they please not vote every year? A lot of them will be people who vote based on irrational ideas, so that'd be a win for reasonable people.
- Only if they're single issue voting for anti abortion but the abortion candidate is morally horrible. I wouldn't expect the numbers to stay down.
Works for me. Fuck em
It’s not enough to not to vote. It’s critical the we vote AGAINST any and all of these extremists. That’s the only way to begin bringing any sanity to our political dialogue.
- We live in a two party system. Not voting for your guy is essentially a vote for the other guy. Especially when elections are this close.
  
  That’s the most common misconception. Not voting for your guy does NOT mean a vote for other guy.
  Here is an example:
  Let’s say you don’t want candidate B to win but you chose to not vote against B and just sit at home or write in your dog’s name instead.
  Candidate A: gets 1000 votes
  Candidate B: gets 1002 votes
  100 people like you didn’t vote or wrote their dog’s name on ballot.
  B wins!
  This is what I meant by “actively voting against” vs just not voting.
Considering about 30% of the general population votes, this is pretty significant - 20% more christians will vote than Gen pop
- Where are you getting those numbers from?
  
  Hmm, it looks like i got confused by this statistic:
  Overall, 70% of U.S. adult citizens who were eligible to participate in all three elections between 2018 and 2022 voted in at least one of them, with about half that share (37%) voting in all three.
  https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022
  Which says the national average voter turnout for all 3 elections is 37%. The actual national average turnout for any individual election is about 46-66% depending on if it's a midterm or not. Since this one is not a midterm election, assuming 50% of Christians are voting, this gives non-Christians an advantage.
Yeah, don't count on it. Republicans always vote and they are always vote shitty.
It would be ironic if all they did was show up to overturn roe, and this election would have had them sit out the election, but then due to the abortion ammendments they were pushed back into voting.
How did I miss this story?!
- What story? There is nothing here but propaganda.
  
  So a study wasn't done? It's a lie? Do you have evidence for this?
Calling BULLSHIT. What part do they disagree when it comes to religion?
Child sex - supported by religion.
Rape - supported by religion.
Killing the innocent - supported by religion.
Controlling women - supported by religion.
Anti LGBTQ+ - supported by religion.
Hatred of other races - supported by religion.
So what is it that will make them change this time?
- You might also point out, for balance, that the opposites of those things can also be expected within religious frameworks.
  With or without religion, it is people who purposefully carry out those actions while more often than not being aware they can be conceived of as harmful. You can try to take religion away from people, but don't expect hate to go with it.
  
  Multiple cultures were well organized and thriving before established religion was forced on them.
  The opposite isn't laid out like the good ol hate.
  A form of religion will always exist or have existed. The problem when mass religions is the hive mind effect. People are outnumbered and go along with the groups even if it is against them.
That seems odd to me considering that antiabortion rules are on the line. I would think they'd be especially motivated to support Trump and get the Senate flipped Republican to keep a federal law from getting implemented to reverse the decision that government can force doctors to let you die if a fetus is the one killing you.
- From my experience in my very red state, there's a high degree of cognitive dissonance when it comes to those things. A family friend who's very religious is secretly undergoing IVF even though the church banned it's use because they want a child more than the threat of excommunication. Supposedly they'll be forgiven for going against the church since they're "fundamentally good" people.
  
  "The only moral abortion is my abortion."
- Trump told them they would never need to vote again after this election.
  A bunch of them probably stopped listening after they heard what they want to hear and didn't hear the part after "again"
Not sure how this is specific to Christians and not just a reflection of the larger population, only around half the population voted in the last federal presidential US election in 2020
apologize.lol send this to your friends
You get handed a bag of snakes, all are lethal, and they demand you pick one. I just have to pass on the snake bite. We are slaves to them, and this is an illusion of the freedom of choice, nothing more.
- A Republican rep from Indian wants mixed race marriage to be a state matter. I am white, my partner is Mexican. If he gets what he wants, our relationship will be a crime in at least his state.
  There are no Democrats openly advocating for my marriage to be a crime.
  It seems not all of those snakes aim to kill me.
  
  Yep. Exactly this. I'm white and my wife is black. We live in one of the states where our relationship was a crime just 55 years ago.
  Her grandfather has stories about what happened to people who crossed the race barrier (of course the law only punished minorities for it, not the white partner). We're not far removed from those horrors and lunatics are already trying to drag us back.
  
  People who cannot detect a meaningful difference between the "snakes" in the bag are outrageously privileged.
  
  WHAT IN THE COUNTRY FRIED FUCK AM I READING RN
- That’s not how it is though, is it. By not voting you are not exempting yourself from political life, you just choose not to matter.
  You are not passing on the snake bite. You are letting others choose the snake for you.
  
  ...you just choose not to matter.
  Yes, this is the best way to live. Pretending to matter is what creates all the bullshit around us.
- Muh both sides bad. All available snakes are venomous. Therefore instead of choosing the least venomous (possibly survivable) snake, instead wait for the most venomous snake to slither up your own colon so you can look it in the eyes.
  
  Muh both sides bad. All available snakes are venomous.
  I'm tired of participating in a system where there is nothing I can do to stop people harming people. Can we just hurry up climate change and end this already? I wish there were a weapon that removed only humans, it's sad you have to bring other life forms into this.
- I bet some Christians would be super into it

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