In recent months, several Republican candidates for the White House in 2024 have been open about how their faith impacts their leadership.
Tim Scott, for example, stated: "I am first a Christian…And it is the thing I have chosen to be above all other things."
American families are starving for hope.
— Tim Scott (@votetimscott) May 18, 2023
We need to have faith.
Faith in God, faith in each other, and faith in America. pic.twitter.com/59Bha0JpEk
And, former Vice President Mike Pence has quoted Scripture in recent debates. But, More than half of Republicans in a recent poll conducted by HarrisX for Desert News say they see former President Donald Trump as a person of faith. A higher percentage said this about Trump than Pence and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Predictably, Democrats surveyed said they think President Joe Biden is a person of faith (via Deseret News):
Registered voters were asked whether they considered a list of political figures people of faith. Trump rose to the top of the list for Republicans, while President Joe Biden topped the list for Democrats. Among independents, Sen. Mitt Romney was most likely to be chosen as a person of faith.
Among Republicans, 53% said Trump was a person of faith, ahead of every other person on the list — although he was statistically tied with Pence, who came in at 52%.
Trump also led several of his other opponents in the Republican presidential primary, with 47% of Republican respondents saying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a person of faith, 31% for Sen. Tim Scott, 31% for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 30% for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and 22% for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Only 23% of Republicans said Biden is a person of faith, while 12% said the same of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The poll was conducted Sept. 8-11, among 1,002 registered voters, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.
New @deseret/@Harris_X_ poll: Republicans are more likely to see Trump as a “person of faith” than Pence, Romney or Biden. https://t.co/7kWN8KW7TG pic.twitter.com/8yLFR7Zqlk
— Samuel Benson (@sambbenson) September 27, 2023
Reportedly, at a Faith & Freedom Gala this past June, Trump said that “no president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have.”
“I’ll fight hard until I’m back behind that desk in the Oval Office,” he added,
In the poll, evangelical voters were more likely to say that Pence (65 percent) is a man of faith than Trump (37 percent). Sixty-nine percent of all respondents said that religion is “somewhat” or “very” important in their lives. The poll was conducted from Sept. 8 to 11 among 1,002 registered voters.
