How the stained-glass divide is straining American politics

New county-level findings on Americans’ religious affiliations show the two parties glaring across a deep chasm in America’s changing spiritual landscape. The religious fault line between the two sides is only deepening, adding another explosive dimension to the volatile separation between red and blue America.

Whites who identify as Christians composed a vastly larger share of the population in the counties Donald Trump won last fall than those captured by President Joe Biden, according to previously unpublished data provided to CNN by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute from a pathbreaking new study estimating religious affiliation at the county level. …

The grounding of today’s partisan differences in such elemental components of social identity as religion — as well as race, education and age — helps explain why the balance of power has grown so difficult for either party to fundamentally shift, despite all the tumultuous events of recent years. It also explains why so many Americans consider the stakes in the political competition higher than ever. The PRRI results point toward a political competition that now revolves less around individual policy disputes than the larger question of whether America’s direction will be set by the predominantly White and Christian voters who have historically wielded the most power or by an emerging America defined by both religious and racial diversity. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN


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