Monday, September 12, 2016
While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is still
making efforts to win over the support of Evangelical Christian voters, the
percentage of all voters who consider a candidate’s faith important to their
vote continues to decline.Voters put even less stock into a candidate’s
appearance or racial background.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey
finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters now rate a candidate’s religious faith as
important to their vote, down from a previous low of 48% in October 2012 and
down considerably from 62% in November 2006. Most
(57%) say a candidate’s faith is unimportant to their vote, up from 51% in the
previous survey. These findings include 16% who say a candidate’s faith is Very
Important to their vote and 26% who say it’s Not At All Important. (To see
survey question wording, click here.)
Voters also appear to show less awareness of the candidates’
religious faith these days: 64% are aware of the religious faith of political
candidates, down 20 points from 2012. Thirty-four percent (34%) lack that
awareness. Twenty-four percent (24%) say they are Very Aware of political
candidates’ religious faith, while just 11% say they are Not At All Aware.
Thirty-one percent (31%) of voters say a candidate’s
physical appearance is at least somewhat important to how they vote, up from
25% last October. Still,
that includes only 10% who say it’s Very Important. For 68%, physical
appearance is not important to their vote, with 31% who say it is Not At All
Important.
Only 10% feel that it is Very or Somewhat Important to their
vote whether a candidate is the same race they are, showing little change from
previous surveys. Eighty-nine percent (89%) consider a candidate’s race unimportant
to their vote, including 61% who say it is Not At All Important.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September
8 and 11, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3
percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen
Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
See methodology.
A majority of Americans consider
themselves to be religious, though there’s less religiosity among
younger adults.
Republicans tend to be more aware of the religious faith of
the candidates and place more importance on it as a voting issue compared to
Democrats and voters not affiliated with either political party.
Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters who are Very Aware of
candidates’ religious faith say it’s an important voting issue.
While voters under 40 appear to be less aware of the
religious faith of the candidates, they place similar importance on it as a
voting issue.
Twenty-seven percent (27%) of black voters say it’s at least
somewhat important that a candidate is the same race as they are, compared to
seven percent (7%) of whites and 12% of other minority voters.
Despite declining interest in the candidates’ religion, 51% of all voters last September
agreed with former GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson that they would not
personally be willing to vote for a Muslim president.
In July 2014, just 13% of
all voters said it is important to them whether a candidate is a man or woman,
while 85% rated a candidate’s sex as unimportant to their vote. Most remain personally willing to vote
for a woman president.
Last October, 46% said they
are guided by their head more than their heart when they vote. But just as many
(46%) say the two play an equal part in their voting decisions. Just eight
percent (8%) feel they are guided more by their heart.
Voters continue to strongly believe that the media is more interested in
controversy than in the issues when it comes to the presidential race.
