US ELECTION 2024
What religion do Trump and Harris profess and which states are most favorable to their religious beliefs?
Here is what both presidential candidates believe in terms of religion.
The election countdown clock is ticking away as tensions rise ahead of what many people are calling the most important election in living memory: two strong candidates with utterly opposing views of the world stand head to head, fighting for votes that will grant them leadership of the western world’s most powerful nation.
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Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both know that religion in the United States is a critical factor in picking up the votes of the people. A belief in god - and a Christian god at that - is a key decider for many Americans in casting their vote for the leader of the country.
What religion is Kamala Harris?
Harris' upbringing was of mixed faith: a Hindu mother and a Christian father took her to both a Black Baptist Church and a Hindu Temple.
“On Sundays, my mother would dress my sister, Maya, and me in our Sunday best and send us off to the 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California, where Maya and I sang in the children’s choir”, she told Interfaith Youth Core in 2020.
She added in her memoir that her' mother took her children to a Black Baptist church “to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women”.
She regularly goes to church and on her campaign trail plenty of references to Jesus and the Christian faith have been used to spread her message to the people.
As for Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, he is Jewish. Were Kamala to win, he would become be the first-ever First Gentleman, as well as the White House’s first Jewish spouse.
What religion in Donald Trump?
Deseret reports that “for much of his life, Trump identified as a Presbyterian, which is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination", saying that he remembers attending the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn “so fondly as an adult that he contributed $10,000 to a church fundraiser”.
However, he’s also stumbled when asked up front about his beliefs, telling CNN that “I think if I do something wrong, I don’t bring God into that picture“, while also claiming he is both a Protestant and a Presbyterian. ”I go to church and I love God and I love my church,” he said.
However, these hiccups do not seem to have damaged his efforts to forge close relationships with powerful religious figures in the country, and at the end of his presidency the magnate declared himself a “non-denominational Christian”.
Both candidates will be judged by many on their religions, although some states generally take it more seriously than others when it comes to voting for a President.
The Pew Research Center recorded that Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas are among the most highly religious states in the nation, while New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Maine in New England are among the least religious.