An amazing thing is happening in the 2024 presidential campaign. Religious beliefs and hostility toward religion are playing bigger roles than in any election in modern times.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz represent the anti-religious ticket. Their past actions and current statements communicate clear opposition to, and disdain for, religion in ways that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
It is an odd campaign decision to be so openly hostile to religion in a country in which people of faith outnumber secularists by 3 to 1.
Scott Rasmussen recently released a survey asking people to identify their faith or religion. The responses were overwhelming: 21% Catholic, 18% Protestant, 17% Bible-believing Christian, 13% evangelical Christian, 3% Jewish and 2% Muslim. Eight percent reported being atheist and 18% said “None of the Above.”
Even if you assume those who picked none of the above are secular (which is unlikely), you end up with a 74% to 26% split.
The difference in attitudes is increasingly showing up in popular sentiment.
When America’s New Majority Project surveyed the key swing states in September, we discovered a clear break between faith-based and secular voters.
Harris carries a solid 64% to 31% advantage among secular voters over former President Donald Trump. However, Trump has an equally large 65% to 34% advantage among evangelicals.
Catholics favor Trump 55% to 41% — and this was before Harris sent an anti-Catholic video to the Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in her absence. The dinner is one of the largest Catholic charitable events in our nation.
Harris’ support among people of faith has declined even further since her rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin. When Harris began talking positively about abortion, college students Luke Polanski and Grant Beth shouted, “Jesus is Lord.” Harris flippantly said, “You guys are at the wrong rally.” The crowd laughed and applauded at her put down of the religious students.
This comment immediately went viral. On video, it was direct. The energy and happiness of the crowd’s support for Harris’ anti-religious bigotry was jarring. The Harris campaign tried to deflect the issue, claiming she was responding to a group of Trump-supporting hecklers. However, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Harris was responding to the remark “Jesus is Lord.”
Harris’ latest rejection of religion came when she said there could be no religious exceptions when performing abortions. She went on to say, “That is not negotiable.” So every faithful doctor or nurse who morally opposes abortion could be coerced by Harris’ government to perform abortions or face legal consequences.
This repudiation of faith has spread throughout the Democratic Party.
James Carville recently said on CNN that Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian faith is dangerous.
“Mike Johnson and what he believes is one of the greatest threats we have to the United States,” Carville said. “I promise you, I know these people. This is a bigger threat than al-Qaida to this country.”
Trump has taken the opposite approach. According to Catholic Vote:
“Trump contrasted the treatment of Catholics under the Biden-Harris administration with his promise to combat anti-religious bias if elected, during a Monday speech in North Carolina. ‘If you’re Catholic, there is no way you can be voting for these people. These people are a nightmare,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what they have against Catholics, but Catholics are treated worse than anybody.’”
This is an extension of the faith-based values Vivek Ramaswamy captured when he announced for president during the Republican primary. As the AP reported, he decried “what he called a ‘national identity crisis’ that he claims is driven by a left-wing ideology that has replaced ‘faith, patriotism and hard work’ with ‘new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism and gender ideology.’”
This aggressively secular minority continues to alienate millions of religious Americans.
The split between secularism and faith may become the most important divide in American politics and government for the next generation.
Newt Gingrich is a former Republican Speaker of the U.S. House.
