With Vice President Kamala Harris choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, the now finalized tickets for this November’s presidential election are comprised of candidates who span the Christian spectrum.
With Walz’s ascendancy to VP candidate, there’s been hype around the moniker “Minnesota Lutheran Dad” to describe Walz’s religious and cultural values. The religious profile of the other candidates on the Democrat and Republican tickets are totally different and just as interesting.
Here’s what to know about the Democrat and Republican candidates’ religious backgrounds and how it affects voter sentiment.
What religion is Kamala Harris?
Harris is Baptist and considers Third Baptist Church of San Francisco her home church and the church’s pastor, the Rev. Amos Brown, a close friend and mentor. The church and Brown are affiliated with the Nashville-based National Baptist Convention, USA, which is the nation’s largest Black Baptist denomination. Harris addressed the National Baptist Convention, USA, at its 2022 annual session.
“For me and President Joe Biden, faith guides our work every day,” Harris said in her address. “We know deeply that when people of faith come together, anything is possible.”
What is Tim Walz’s religion affiliation?
Walz is Lutheran and has referred to Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul as “my parish,” a congregation affiliated with the more progressive mainline Lutheran denomination called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to Religion News Service.
Deseret News reported that not only has Walz’s religion informed his policy positions on various social and political issues, but that his faith is also significant because it’s representative of a unique faith-based culture in Minnesota defined by its Lutheran roots and popularity.
Former President Donald Trump is a non-denominational evangelical Christian, an identifier he started using in 2020 that deviated from his previous self-described Presbyterian affiliation. The congregation that confirmed Trump as a child is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), a more progressive mainline Protestant denomination that even at one point publicly challenged its ties with Trump. Yet, Public Religion Research Institute and Pew Research reports in 2020 and 2024 said most Americans don’t see Trump as especially religious himself.
What religion is JD Vance?
Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is Catholic, a tradition he converted to in 2019 and that has since been a defining feature of his public image. The Washington Post reported Vance’s conversion to Catholicism is part of a larger trend among some on the right who have been drawn to Catholicism’s rigid order. Vance is associated with a conservative Catholic movement that supports Christianity taking a more active role in influencing society, according to Religion News Service.
How will the candidates’ religious background impact the presidential race?
A candidate’s specific religious background helps explain their views, but it has little effect on determining voters’ support.
Instead, enthusiasm within a faith group for one candidate versus another is based on broader ideological alignment. A candidate’s position on issues that that fit within a religious group’s set of values determines how members of that religious group vote.
According to most recent data from Pew Research in an April report, there’s support for Trump among 81% of white evangelicals, 61% of white Catholics, and 57% of white Protestants who are not evangelical.
On the other side, Pew’s report said 77% of Black Protestants supported President Joe Biden, who was still a candidate at the time of the survey. But now that a Black woman who’s open about her Baptist faith is running in place of Biden, that latter statistic is unlikely to suffer.
Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What religion is Tim Walz, JD Vance? Will background impact voters
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