One of the most surprising bits of post-election polling data comes today via Fox News. For all the talk from Christians about abortion being their primary reason for supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy, that turns out to be, well, not true at all.
According to Fox News data exit polls, just three percent of voters listed abortion as the most important issue facing the country. The COVID-19 pandemic, racism, the economy, health care and even climate change were all ranked more highly, according to this poll.
Among the sliver of voters who consider abortion to the most important issue facing the country, 89 percent voted for Trump and nine percent voted for Biden.
Last year, LifeWay’s research team found that evangelicals ranked abortion sixth in their list of political priorities, behind more broadly conservative issues like the economy, healthcare and immigration. That flies in the face of the commonly accepted narrative that abortion issues are a lynchpin of evangelical support.
According to that LifeWay survey, 51 percent of evangelicals said they would only support a candidate who pledged to outlaw abortion. That’s a majority, but it’s a smaller majority than other dealbreaker issues like fighting racial injustice (67 percent) and fighting poverty (71 percent).
