President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents are courting voters with less than a year before the 2020 election, and many of them are chasing support from a variety of religious voters — in pews on the right and the left.
For example, all eyes are on Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his attempts to build trust with African-American churchgoers — a crucial part of the Democratic Party base in the Sunbelt and elsewhere. We will return to that subject.
But first, the Trump campaign announced recently that the president's re-election efforts would include launching three coalitions: “Evangelicals for Trump,” “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.”
Despite being impeached by the House, the Trump campaign’s focus on these three religious groups aims to expand the president’s support, especially in battleground states where the former real-estate mogul won in 2016.
An analysis of the 2018 midterm elections conducted by Pew Research Center found continuity in the voting patterns of key religious groups. For example, white evangelicals voted for Republican candidates at about the same rate they did in 2014, while religiously unaffiliated voters and Jews again largely backed Democrats.
There’s plenty that Trump and the crowded field of Democrats challenging him have done over the past few months, and are continuing to do as we head into 2020, to court religious voters. Expect that to intensify with the start of the primaries next years and in the months before November’s general election.
Below is a look at Trump’ efforts, along with those of the seven Democrats who qualified for the next debate on Thursday night in Los Angeles.