Religion’s role in the election’s home stretch

As Election Day quickly approaches, many Americans are leaning on faith to handle election-related stress.
Around three-quarters of U.S. adults say religion helps them deal with the uncertainties of election season, and around half say they’re going to pray before casting their ballots, according to a survey from Religion News Service.
Over the past few days, the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance campaigns have acknowledged religion’s significant role in politics with their scheduling choices.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, both visited churches over the weekend, while former President Donald Trump spoke at a major Catholic fundraising dinner on Thursday night, according to NBC News.
Those events were notable since the past few months of campaigning have been relatively religion-free if you compare them to past presidential elections, the article said.
While Harris, Walz, Trump and Sen. JD Vance all identify as Christian, they’re rarely seen taking breaks from the campaign trail to pray or attend worship services.
By comparison, President Joe Biden regularly paused his 2020 campaign to attend Mass and talked often about wearing his rosary.
One explanation for the relative absence of religious activity could be that the country, as a whole, has become less religiously active in recent years.
Another is that Trump, Vance, Harris and Walz have more complicated religious backgrounds than most others who have appeared on presidential tickets.
Complicated religious backgrounds like these are likely “harder to ‘sell’ politically than Biden’s familiar Catholicism,” NBC News reported.
Still, both campaigns have found ways to connect with religious voters, whether by speaking about how their administration would work to protect religious freedom or describing how faith informs their policy positions.
“When the way is not clear, it is our faith that then guides us forward — faith in what we often cannot see but we know to be true,” Harris said during her Sunday visit to New Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta, per NBC News.