‘This should send chills down the backs of Democrats that have embraced this hostility’
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(Photo by Joe Kovacs)
By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation
The United States has become dramatically more secular over the past 10 years, a trend that has benefited the Democratic Party at the expense of the GOP, meaning Republicans must recalibrate their electoral strategy, according to religious advocates that spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The popularity of religion has been declining in the U.S. for decades, and data from the 2020 U.S. Religion Census has shown that as regions dispense with religion, they tend to lean more favorably toward Democrats, while religious Americans have sided more with Republicans, according to a Politico analysis. In light of this, religious advocates that spoke with the DCNF said that Republicans should stress issues that both mobilize religious voters and appeal to non-religious Americans to expand their base, as the electorate will increasingly be polarized along the axis of faith.
“We see parents concerned about the secular ideology being taught to their kids, whether it’s the transgender issue or whether it’s the stuff of surrounding COVID fear-mongering,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian research and educational nonprofit, told the DCNF. “These parents that object are equated to domestic terrorists. Clearly, the Democratic Party is making its future with a secular white suburban voter that is indifferent to religion, and even hostile to it, whereas the Republican Party, their future, if they are to succeed, is going to need to be increasingly aligned with those who have an appreciation for, if not a participation in, religion.”
Census data found that areas such as Florida’s Miami-Dade county, where Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won by 30 points over former President Donald Trump in 2016, saw an increase in religious communities by 12%. As a result, the county drifted toward Republicans in 2020, with President Joe Biden’s lead in the county clocking in at only seven points.
Texas, a border state with an increasing Hispanic population, has also seen a growing number of evangelicals. In Zapata County, the number of people who were a part of religious congregation doubled from 2010 to 2020, with Biden taking the county by only 11 points in 2020, in contrast to Clinton’s 44-point lead in 2016.
Perkins told the DCNF that he has been encouraging the Republican Party to reach out more to the Hispanic community, which tends to be much more religious, and that the GOP should focus on tapping into its religious base while expanding outreach to faith-based communities.
“I’ve spent time on the border states meeting with Hispanic leaders, and I knew intuitively, based upon that interaction, that those Hispanic voters are actually more aligned with the Republican Party,” Perkins said. “I’ve been telling party leaders, ‘Look, the connection point with them is faith.’ It’s quite instructive that the key to the fastest-growing political segment demographic in the Hispanic community is faith. This should send chills down the backs of Democrats that have embraced this hostility toward religious expression.”