The 3 - November 10, 2024

This week's edition of The 3, highlighting three stories of relevance to the Christian community, includes some exit poll data that provide an indication into how religious groups voted.  Also, three states rejected attempts to allow abortion during the entirety of a woman's pregnancy. And, an attempt to prevent boys from competing in girls' sports continues to move forward after a court decision.

Early faith stats show white evangelicals, Catholics broke for Trump

I have not seen the numbers of exactly how many faith voters actually went to the polls to cast ballots in the 2024 election, but there are some indications of how various religious groups voted.  The day after Election Day, in my roundup on The Meeting House, I included this analysis of exit polling data from The Washington Post:

According to early exit polls, Catholic voters supported Trump over Harris by a double-digit margin. In 2020, Catholics backed Joe Biden, who would become America’s second Catholic president, by a five-point margin. In both years, about a quarter of voters were Catholic.

Other religious groups were more similar to 2020. About 6 in 10 Protestants supported Trump over Harris, and they made up about 40 percent of the electorate. Just under 2 in 10 voters reported no religion, and they supported Harris by a 3-to-1 margin.

Trump’s strongest religious group were voters who identified as White born-again Christians, who represented about 2 in 10 voters. About 8 in 10 of them supported him nationally, similar to his margin in 2020.

I noted that the chart of the data apparently uses "evangelical" and "born-again" interchangeably.  About one-fourth of voters indicate no religious preference.

In August, I had related this analysis from David Brody of CBN News:

In 2008, Barack Obama received 26% of the White Born Again Evangelical Vote and won. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 16% of the White Born Again Evangelical Vote and lost. In 2020, Joe Biden received 24% of the White Born Again Evangelical Vote and won. So if Kamala Harris gets 20% or more of the White Born Again Evangelical Vote, Trump could very well lose the General Election to Harris.

The updated data at The Washington Post showed that Harris received 17% of that vote, with Trump garnering 82%.

Three states turn back pro-abortion ballot measures

The day following Election Day, Nicole Hunt, Life Issues Analyst for Focus on the Family and contributor to The Daily Citizen discussed how three states rejected ballot measures that would allow abortion during the entirety of a woman's pregnancy.  Seven states, however, passed similar measures.

In a piece at The Daily Citizen website, Nicole Hunt wrote:

Prior to Tuesday, we saw seven losses for the pro-life movement in statewide ballot measures. And last night, we saw another seven states adopt radical abortion policy into their state constitution.

While there is still much more work to do, the wins in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota were critical for the pro-life movement.

She noted:

Pro-life advocates needed these wins.

Pro-life donors needed these wins.

And pro-life voters needed these wins.

In providing insight into the path to victory for these three states, Hunt stated: 

In Florida, the heightened threshold of 60% approval was a game changer. Ultimately the amendment failed because it only got 57% of the vote.

In Nebraska, the pro-life community brought forward a pro-life initiative to compete against the abortion measure.

In both of those states, political leaders fearlessly advocated for life and helped raise money for the pro-life cause.

In South Dakota, we saw a naturally more conservative base that wasn’t influenced by big abortion money. According to state filings, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood didn’t even put money into the South Dakota campaign.

Court case involving males competing in female sports allowed to continue

One of the issues in the 2024 election has to do with males competing in female sports. This certainly is an affront to God's created order, and numerous Christian organizations, including Alliance Defending Freedom, have stepped up to preserve the important civil rights issue of allowing females to exclusive participate in female sports.  Already, courts have looked favorably on challenges to changes made to Title IX that would redefine the word "sex" to include so-called "gender identity" and sexual orientation.

On its website, Alliance Defending Freedom reports that a federal district court just last week issued a "decision...in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools to allow the case of four female athletes, who are challenging a state athletic association policy that allows males to compete in women’s high school sports, to proceed, rejecting the request of state officials to dismiss the case..."

Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau stated that these four athletes "deserve access to fair competition."  She went on to say...

...Following the 2nd Circuit’s decision to allow these brave women to make their case under Title IX and set the record straight, the district court has rightly rejected the state’s request to dismiss the case and instead recognized that the girls’ ‘schools are potentially liable for subjecting the plaintiffs to discrimination under their athletic programs in violation of Title IX.’ This is imperative not only for the women who have been deprived of medals, potential scholarships, and other athletic opportunities but for all female athletes across the country. This ruling creates one fewer obstacle for high school girls to face as they pursue their athletic dreams.”