A recently-released survey by LifeWay Research has revealed that over half of evangelicals say they will not vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In order to analyze evangelical political trends, the survey first identified evangelicals by asking four questions about foundational evangelical beliefs on the Bible, the crucifixion, salvation, and evangelism.
According to Christianity Today, 17 percent of those surveyed qualified as having evangelical beliefs.
The survey then looked at the political views among this group and found that 45 percent said they support Trump while 31 percent said they support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
A complete breakdown of the survey results show, in addition to the respective support for Trump and Clinton, eight percent support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and 15 percent who say they are still undecided.
When evangelicals are split between races, however, the results are much different. Among white evangelicals, support for Trump is significant (65 percent), as opposed to support for Clinton (only 10 percent). But with African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, the results are reversed, with 62 percent favoring Clinton over the 15 percent supporting Trump.
“This group of Christians shares the same core beliefs, but they don’t vote the same way,” said LifeWay executive director Scott McConnell. “There are significant cultural and political divides among evangelicals that will remain long after the election is over.”
Publication date: October 17, 2016
