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The Partisanship of Protestant Clergy in the 2016 Presidential Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2021

James L. Guth  and
Corwin E. Smidt Open the ORCID record for Corwin E. Smidt [Opens in a new window]
James L. Guth
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and International Affairs, Furman University, Greenville, SC 29613 (USA)
Corwin E. Smidt*
Affiliation:
The Henry Institute, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI 49546
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Corwin E. Smidt, The Henry Institute, Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, E-mail: smid@calvin.edu
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Abstract

Given their strategic position within American society, clergy continue to remain important actors in American politics. This article examines the partisan identifications and electoral behavior of American Protestant clergy in the 2016 presidential election. Although clergy partisanship may be of interest in any election, the 2016 contest, given the milieu of political polarization and the presence of the Trump candidacy, provides an intriguing context for assessing the profession's electoral behavior, particularly among Republican clergy. Based on survey results from over 2,500 clergy drawn from ten Protestant (five mainline and five evangelical) denominations, the study finds that, during the early stages of the 2016 nomination process, only a small percentage of Republican clergy supported Trump and that, despite the high level of political polarization, a sizable segment of Republican clergy resisted partisan pressures and refused to vote for Trump in the general election. The propensity of both independent and Republican clergy to vote for the GOP nominee varied largely with the level of perceived “threats”: to the Christian heritage of the nation, from Islam, and from the process of “globalization.”

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 291 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

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