Though their support for the president has grown, survey finds most Latino Christians plan to vote for Joe Biden.
A new survey focusing on Latino Christian voters found that former Vice President Joe Biden has a voting advantage over President Donald Trump. Even so, Trump’s support among the group has grown significantly since 2016.
It found that 62 percent of registered Latino Christian voters said they would vote for Biden, compared to the 30% who would vote for Trump, according to the Claremont McKenna College’s Latino Religions and Politics National Survey, which was released Wednesday.
Biden leads Trump among Catholics (67%–25%) and Protestants (52%–39%), but not evangelicals (46%–48%), the survey found.
The bilingual survey, which polled 1,292 Latino Christian voters between September 8–22, is described as the largest Latino religion and politics survey this election season. It exclusively focused on registered voters and Latino Catholics, Protestants, and evangelicals.
Gastón Espinosa, who chairs the religious studies department at Claremont McKenna College, said the survey featured 823 Catholics, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.42 percent, and 453 Protestants and other Christians, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percent.
Espinosa said they focused on Latino Christians because they “make up the vast majority of Latinos who are religious.” Exploring the role of religion in politics is crucial given that nearly 70 percent of the surveyed Latino Christians said religious guidance is important in their daily lives, he said.
The top three issues among Latino Christian voters were the economy, COVID-19 and “stopping racial violence.” Most (64%) disapprove of the way Trump has handled the pandemic, and 59 percent of Latino Christian …