In the U.S. presidential election, religious groups are more divided than we think

Attendees at a party organized by Democrats from Miami’s Haitian-American community gather for a group photo.& (The Associated Press, Rebecca Blackwell) by Frédéric Castel, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Outsiders may find it disconcerting to hear the religious references, whether sincere or opportunistic, that have been working their way into U.S. political discourse since the Reagan years, including some by certain religious leaders. Despite this, the role of religious identities in American elections cannot be decoded by simply pitting the faithful against secularized progressives. Even quite far on the left, it’s not rare to hear male and female politicians referring to their faith. Although the leaders of the Christian right are united in their goal of gaining privileged access to the Oval Office, the different religious populations in the U.S. are politically quite divided. Trained as a geographer, historian and religiologist, I have been studying the evolution of ethnoreligious diversity in Québec as a whole, as well as in certain specific religious universes, for twenty years. My analyses are based on both Canadian census data and field surveys. Since 2016, I have examined different elections at various levels of government (Montréal, Québec, Canada, United States), particularly from the angle...