Trump, Biden supporters disagree on the Bible, Christianity's influence in the US: poll
A new report reveals a wide divergence in views between voters who plan on supporting President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election and those intending to back former President Donald Trump on issues related to marriage, traditional values, abortion, sexuality and the role of religion in American life.
The Pew Research Center released a report last Thursday titled “Cultural Issues and the 2024 Election.” The findings in the study are based on responses collected from 8,749 U.S. adults from April 8–14.
When asked if they believed “society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority,” a majority (59%) of Trump supporters answered in the affirmative compared to just 19% of Biden supporters. A higher share of Trump supporters (37%) also indicated they were “uncomfortable with women not taking their husbands’ last names when they get married” than Biden supporters (13%).
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A plurality of Trump supporters (47%) viewed the declining birthrate in the U.S. as “bad,” followed by 35% who characterized it as “neither good nor bad” and 17% who believed it was “good.” By contrast, half of Biden supporters (50%) were neutral on the declining birthrate, while 27% thought it was a positive development and the remaining 23% viewed it negatively.
The divisions between Trump and Biden backers also extended to the issue of abortion. Nearly half of Biden supporters (46%) wanted to see abortion “legal in most cases,” while an additional 42% supported laws making abortion “legal in all cases.” Just 8% thought abortion should be “illegal in most cases.”
On the other hand, half of Trump supporters (50%) believed that abortion should be “illegal in most cases,” while 11% thought it should be “illegal in all cases.” Nearly one-third (28%) of Trump supporters favored making abortion “legal in most cases” while 9% took the position that it should be “legal in all cases.”
When it came to the availability of birth control, majorities of both Trump and Biden backers viewed widespread access to contraception as “good.” However, a much higher share of Biden voters (93%) than Trump voters (66%) had this view of contraception. Twenty-two percent of Trump backers and 5% of Biden backers told pollsters they thought widespread availability of birth control was “neither good nor bad.” Only 11% of Trump supporters described access to contraception as “bad.”
When it comes to one's gender identity, Trump supporters were nearly unanimous (90%) in their belief that an individual’s gender is “determined by sex assigned at birth.” Meanwhile, a majority of Biden supporters (59%) expressed agreement with the idea that “whether a person is a man or a woman can be different" from their sex.
When asked about their level of comfort with people using gender-neutral pronouns such as “they/them” instead of “he” or “she,” 66% of Biden supporters described themselves as “comfortable” with the concept opposed to just 20% of Trump supporters. In response to a question about whether they viewed “more people feeling comfortable identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in the past” as “good,” a majority (51%) of Biden supporters answered in the affirmative.
An additional 35% of Biden supporters considered the increased prevalence of LGBT identification in the U.S. as “neither good nor bad,” while the remaining 13% of Biden supporters thought it was “bad.” Among Trump backers, a majority (53%) signaled disapproval of increased LGBT identification, followed by 36% who felt neutral about it and 11% who favored the development.
A majority of Biden backers (57%) thought “same-sex marriages being legal in the U.S.” was “good” for society, while an additional 31% characterized the development as “neither good nor bad,” and 12% considered it “bad.” A narrow majority of Trump supporters (51%) had an unfavorable opinion about the legalization of same-sex marriage, as 39% had a neutral opinion and 11% supported it.
While majorities of Biden and Trump supporters opposed the idea that “government policies should support religious values and beliefs,” a much higher share of Trump backers (43%) than Biden supporters (13%) agreed with the statement. Similarly, 36% of Trump supporters agreed that “the Bible should have a great deal of influence on the laws of the U.S.” compared to 11% of Biden supporters.
A plurality of Trump supporters (36%) believed that the Bible should have “a great deal of influence” on U.S. laws, followed by 33% who thought it should have “some” impact. Smaller shares of Trump supporters thought that the Bible’s influence on U.S. laws should be “not much” (16%) or “not at all” (14%).
A majority of Biden supporters (53%) believed that the Bible should have no influence on U.S. laws, while 16% thought it should not influence public policy very much. Nineteen percent of Biden backers supported allowing the Bible to have “some” influence on U.S. laws, while 11% favored giving it a “great deal” of influence.
Among the 30% of Biden supporters who supported the idea of the Bible having “some” or a “great deal of influence” in American society, half (15%) thought the Bible should have more influence on U.S. laws than the will of the people in areas where the two conflict, while the other half (15%) said the opposite.
Meanwhile, among the 69% of Trump supporters who want the Bible to have at least “some” impact in American society, 45% believed that the Bible should have more influence, while 22% took the opposite position.
Very small percentages of both Biden (6%) and Trump supporters (22%) favored the federal government making Christianity the “official religion of the United States.” However, a much higher share of Trump backers (59%) believed that the federal government should “promote Christian moral values” than Biden backers (22%). A majority of Biden backers expressed support for the idea that the federal government should not “promote Christian moral values” (58%), while 17% of Trump backers said the same.
When asked if they believed it was “necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values,” 45% of Trump supporters answered in the affirmative. An even smaller share of Biden supporters (20%) saw a belief in God as a prerequisite for morality and good values.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
