Doug Pagitt Election 2020: Trump's support from Catholics and evangelicals is dropping. They fault his unkindness.
Many religious voters have woken up to the fact that Trump simply lacks basic Christian kindness, and they are looking for an off-ramp.
President Donald Trump's attacks on American service members are just the latest example of how mean-spirited the president can be. But his subsequent denial that he said the things he did demonstrates that he understands that disrespect and indecency can go too far, at least in an election year.
What Trump may not fully realize is that his general tendency to be unkind may have already cost him the election.
In 2016, many evangelical and Catholic voters seemed willing to look past his bombast and crudeness on the campaign trail to give him a chance, choosing him over his Democratic competitor, Hillary Clinton, by 65 percentage points and 7 percentage points, respectively. Since then, however, they have witnessed four years of unrelenting cruelty. And some now seem to feel that enough is enough.
....[In recent polling, across] all the virtues measured — kindness, generosity, humility, chastity, modesty, diligence and patience — on average, 50 percent of respondents rated Biden as more virtuous than Trump, and 39 percent rated Trump as more virtuous than Biden, with the largest gaps emerging around the virtues of humility and modesty (28 points and 22 points in Biden's favor, respectively). Across the seven sins — lust, sloth, greed, wrath, gluttony, envy and pride — on average, 51 percent of respondents rated Trump as more sinful than Biden, and 37 percent rated Biden as more sinful than Trump, with the largest gaps emerging around the sins of pride and anger (29 points and 26 points in Biden's favor, respectively).
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Indeed, 44 percent of all respondents said Biden is kinder than Trump, while 30 percent said Trump is kinder. Among 2016 Trump voters, perceiving Trump as unkind was the single strongest predictor of swinging away from him, with 2016 Trump voters who viewed the president as "not at all" kind having about an 80 percent chance of saying they didn't intend to vote for him again in 2020.
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Among Catholics we surveyed, the biggest turns in Biden's favor were in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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Many religious voters have woken up to the fact that Trump simply lacks basic Christian kindness, and they are looking for an off-ramp.
Read the whole story here: Trump Support Drops Among Religious Voters
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