4 candidates, 4 religions

This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter . Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here . To submit a question to next week’s Friday Mailbag, email onthetrail@deseretnews.com .

Hello, friends. I’m writing today from Phoenix, where Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate, Tim Walz, will be rallying tonight.

3 things to know

• Harris and Walz are touring the country after the VP pick was announced Tuesday morning. They’ve made appearances in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, with two more events — in Arizona and Nevada — pending. A full week of swing-state stops. Read more here.
• Meanwhile, Donald Trump will hold his first rally in over a week on Friday in Bozeman, Montana. The state has only four electoral votes and isn’t considered a battleground state, but it is the site of a key Senate race that could help determine whether Republicans seize control of both chambers of Congress this November. Read more here.
• Trump promises to shield Christians from persecution by creating a “federal task force” focused on “investigating all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.” Trump’s promise tracks with a growing sentiment among white evangelicals who view themselves to be victims of persecution in the U.S., though data proving this is sparse. Read more here.

The big idea

Four candidates, four religions

As of this week, the major-party presidential tickets are set: Trump and JD Vance, and Harris and Walz. Among the candidates, there is geographical, ethnic and gender diversity. And, notably, there is a good deal of religious diversity.

My colleague, Kelsey Dallas , has done a fantastic job reporting on the candidates’ religious backgrounds. I borrow from her reporting here. Consider this your unofficial guide to the religions on the ballot:

Former President Trump now describes himself as a nondenominational Christian, though he identified as a Presbyterian for much of his life. But during his first campaign for president, Dallas writes , “Trump’s comments about his religious upbringing were often awkward,” resulting in gaffes like calling the New Testament book “Two Corinthians.” What’s more, Trump’s perceived moral character — like his brashness and his alleged affairs — turned off many religious voters.

Even so, a majority of Republican voters consider Trump to be a “person of faith” — not because they think he is devoutly religious, but because they view him as a defender of religious people. Religious conservatives praise his three Supreme Court appointments as a victory for religious liberty. And in a signal toward that base, part of Trump’s platform calls for creating a federal task force to investigate anti-Christian discrimination.

Vice President Harris has a more ecumenical religious background than any other major-party candidate on this year’s presidential ticket. Her mother grew up in India and practiced Hinduism. Her father, a Black American, taught her Christianity. Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, is the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. vice president. And Harris herself identifies as a Baptist. “She represents a religious pluralism that ought to be amenable to religious freedom,” said Nathan Finn, senior fellow on religious liberty with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

But some religious conservatives “find Kamala Harris’ beliefs about religious freedom troubling,” Finn added — noting that Harris is a staunch supporter of abortion access and LGBTQ rights, and she supported some legislation in the U.S. Senate that would have limited the application of federal religious freedom protections.

Harris maintains a close relationship with the Rev. Amos C. Brown of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church .

Sen. JD Vance , too, has an ecumenical background. He grew up attending an evangelical Christian church but was baptized as a Catholic as an adult. His wife, Usha Vance, is Hindu. Vance said he weighed his decision to join the Catholic church with the impact it would have on his then-2-year-old son: “(My conversion) probably would have happened sooner if the sex abuse crisis, or the newest version of it, hadn’t made a lot of headlines. It forced me to process the church as a divine and a human institution, and what it would mean for my 2-year-old son,” Vance said in 2019.

And Gov. Tim Walz is a self-described “Minnesota Lutheran.” If elected, Walz would become either the first or second Lutheran vice president, reports Jack Jenkins from the Religious News Service: “The only previous vice president connected to the tradition was another Minnesotan, Hubert Humphrey, who was raised Lutheran but ended up attending a Methodist church after his family moved to a city where there wasn’t a Lutheran one available.”

If you’ve read this far, you probably have at least a passing interest in the faith of the candidates. But do American voters, in the aggregate, really care? Does a candidate’s personal religiosity have an effect on voters’ decisions? It wasn’t long ago when only 38% of U.S. voters said the country was ready for a Latter-day Saint president. (Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination in 2012 nonetheless.) In the three subsequent election cycles, the Republicans have nominated Trump.

So, do voters really care? Yes and no — by almost equal proportions. In 2020, 48% of voters said a candidate’s religious beliefs and practices are important to consider when voting; 52% said they were not important.

What I’m reading

All eyes are on Arizona, a key battleground state. But for Democrats, that gaze starts and stops with Maricopa County. Volunteers, resources and staff are being poured into the Phoenix urban area, and the rest of the state is being “ignored,” according to a former Democrat organizer from rural Arizona. Trump is launching “Rural Americans for Trump”; Democrats, it seems, are cutting their losses and honing in on cities: “The scythe of Trumpism cut so cleanly through America’s farm and ranch country not so much because voters radically changed their beliefs but because Democrats made the disastrous strategic decision to abandon them.” How the Democratic Party Abandoned Rural Voters (Tom Zoellner, The Dispatch)

Trump’s relationship with Walz, the Democrats’ new VP nominee, goes back years. In a recently unearthed interview, Walz blames Trump for riling up Minnesotans during the pandemic — which led to Walz dealing with armed demonstrators at his private residence. Then, on January 6, protesters marched on the residence again, and Walz’ 14-year-old son had to be evacuated by state patrol. ‘I t Brought Armed People to My House’: Tim Walz on Being Targeted By Donald Trump (Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, Politico)

The Biden administration’s approach to migration has been twofold: making entrance at the border more difficult (by curtailing asylum and other programs), and by making the journey to the border — with the assistance of Mexico and Central American countries — more difficult. This dispatch from the Darién Gap, a treacherous stretch crossed by thousands of migrants each year, highlights the futility of that strategy: “These deaths are the result not only of extreme conditions, but also of the flawed logic embraced by the U.S. and other wealthy nations: that by making migration harder, we can limit the number of people who attempt it. This hasn’t happened ... The harder migration is, the more cartels and other dangerous groups will profit, and the more migrants will die.” Seventy Miles in Hell (Caitlin Dickerson, The Atlantic)

See you on the trail.

Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values . Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here .