Jesus Is Their Savior, Trump Is Their Candidate. Ex-President’s Backers Say He Shares Faith, Values

For the Associated Press, Peter Smith examines Christian support for former President Donald Trump in 2024. Smith writes that while many Christian supporters cite abortion as a top election issue, even more cite other issues — from foreign policy and immigration to gas prices and inflation as critical. PRRI President and Founder Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., explained, “One of the biggest myths about white evangelical support for Trump is this idea that it’s really about abortion and they’re holding their nose and voting for Trump.” Describing results from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Survey, Jones said, “Less than half of white evangelicals said that abortion was a critical issue to them… more than half said that five others were a critical issue, including human trafficking, public schools, rising prices, immigration, and crime.”

Donald Trump’s Abortion Problem at the Polls

Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker reports that as extreme measures taken by anti-abortion groups continue to mount in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Americans’ support for abortion legality has steadily risen. As a result, former President Trump has embraced a state-level approach which has disappointed anti-abortion and evangelical voters but is unlikely to lose him their support. Talbot writes that in Louisiana, a committee recently rejected a bill allowing exceptions to the state’s abortion ban for rape and incest victims under seventeen, and that the Supreme Court will soon decide if Idaho emergency rooms can deny abortions to patients facing severe health risks but not immediate death. According to PRRI, 70% of blue-state residents and 57% of red-state residents say abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

America’s Largest LGBTQ Rights Group Plans $15 Million Swing State Campaign to Re-Elect Biden

Sahil Kapur at NBC News reports that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest LGBTQ rights group in the U.S., is committing $15 million to support President Joe Biden against former President Trump in the 2024 election. The funding will target six key battleground states through paid ads, staff hires, and field campaigns. The HRC estimates that 75 million voters will make their decision based on a candidate’s position on LGBTQ rights, and the organization also hopes to sway hundreds of thousands of voters who are at risk of not voting or choosing a third-party candidate. PRRI research finds that Democrats are the most likely to say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on LGBTQ rights (38%), compared with 29% of Republicans and 25% of independents.

Benedictine College Nuns Denounce Harrison Butker’s Speech at Their School

For NPR, John Helton describes a recent statement released by an order of nuns affiliated with Benedictine College rejecting Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s comments in the commencement speech he gave there. During his address at the Catholic liberal arts college, Butker, who has been vocal about his Catholic faith, denounced abortion legality, Pride month, and “the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion.” Helton’s remarks telling women in the audience to embrace the “vocation” of homemaker was one of the themes the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica took issue with in their statement. PRRI finds that seven in ten U.S. Catholics (70%) support the legalization of same-sex marriage and more than half of U.S. Catholics (52%) desire more women in Church leadership.