A new Lifeway Research study found that many pastors in the United States are undecided on whether they will support former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election, while twice as many pastors plan to vote for Trump. The survey, released Tuesday, found that roughly 23 percent of pastors were undecided on who to vote for this November. On the other hand, 50 percent of respondents plan to support Trump, while 24 percent intend to vote for Harris.
"We ask pastors about many things going on in the culture today and they are willing to provide their opinion," Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said in a statement. "However, the growing number of pastors unwilling to respond with their voting intentions shows how sensitive or divisive politics has become in some churches."
It was also noted in the report that exactly one-half of those surveyed identified as Republicans, while 25 percent characterized themselves as independents and 18 percent described themselves as Democrats.
"Out of all the descriptors of pastors, their own political party preference is the best predictor of how they will vote," McConnell maintained. "Denominational groups often lean one way politically, but pastors must minister alongside many clergy who don't share their political views."
"The same is true within their own congregations. In a culture that increasingly doesn't want to tolerate people with different political views, pastors lead churches that strive for unity centered on faith."
According to The Christian Post, the findings were similar to Lifeway's 2020 survey, which found that 53 percent of Protestant pastors planned to vote for Trump in that year's election, while 21 percent planned to support Joe Biden and 22 percent were undecided.
In 2016, four in 10 pastors said they were still undecided as of September of that year, while nearly a third (32 percent) planned to vote for Trump and 19 percent planned to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In 2024, Pentecostals had the highest share of respondents who plan to vote for Trump (65 percent), followed by Baptists (64 percent), non-denominational Christians (64 percent), members of the Church of Christ (55 percent), Lutherans (48 percent), Methodists (26 percent) and Presbyterians (24 percent). Meanwhile, a much higher share of self-described Evangelical pastors (61 percent) expressed their intention to support Trump than their mainline Protestant counterparts (30 percent).
The survey was conducted between Aug. 8 and Sept. 3 and collected responses from 1,003 Protestant pastors, with a margin error of +3.3 percentage points.
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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.