Poll shows most Christians think Donald Trump exaggerates his religious beliefs
A majority of Americans believe Donald Trump is exaggerating his religious beliefs to try and win-over voters, a poll found. The survey discovered that only 27% of people in the US see President Trump as a man of faith, with 55% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with claims he has religious convictions.
A third of all Christians believe Trump to be religious, with around a quarter of Catholics and 18% of non-denominational Christians feeling the same way. Evangelical Christians – a key part of Trump’s base – are most likely to view him as religious, with 40% accepting his claims about his spiritual beliefs.
But 33% of evangelicals disagree with the claim that Trump is a religious man, with the president, who was raised Presbyterian, only attending church infrequently. The poll was conducted after Trump visited St John’s Episcopal Church opposite the White House last week, where he posed with a Bible for 17 minutes without saying any prayers.
President Trump and his wife Melania also visited a Catholic shrine to Pope John Paul II last week in an apparent attempt to woo Catholic voters – although both trips were blasted by religious leaders angry at Trump’s response the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.
The MorningConsult poll, shared by Politico, found Catholic support for Trump had slumped from 60% to 48% since the 2016 presidential election, with a fifth of his evangelical supporters going off him since March. Over the course of last month, the president’s favorability rating amongst all Christians slipped from 57% to 46%.
Those figures are said to have sparked alarm in the White House, with Trump hopeful of retaining support from religious conservatives to help him win November’s presidential election. The thrice-married president, who made much of his fortune as a casino owner, has pivoted on previous social positions including abortion in an attempt to appeal to those voters.
Trump previously described himself as pro-choice, but has taken a hard line on abortion since becoming president, and says he now only supports it in cases where the woman has been raped, or continuing with the pregnancy puts her health at risk.
Last month, he appeared keen to boost his flagging numbers by telling churches, synagogues and other places of worship that they could defy state social distancing laws on coronavirus to re-open.
Asked by former White House press secretary Sean Spicer whether he’d ‘grown in faith’ last week, Trump took the chance to hail what he claimed were his successes with religion.
The president said: ‘So I think maybe I have, from the standpoint that I see so much that I can do. I’ve done so much for religion.’
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