MS front view African American man in blue sweater and wearing a silver cross on a chain casting vote in booth at polling station. US flag on wall in background
Lecture

Faith and the Faithful in the 2024 Election: A Look Back, a Look Around, a Look Forward to November

The 2024 United States elections will test our nation’s democracy and the religious faith of many voters. A divided nation will choose its leaders. Religious communities and voters will affect those choices in decisive ways. As the U.S. presidential campaign moves forward, “faith and the faithful” will help shape the debate, decision, and election outcomes. Candidates will be reaching out to particular communities. Religious voters will be considering how the issues and campaigns of 2024 might affect their voting decisions.

Five respected leaders and analysts will look back at the role of religion in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, examine its place in ongoing campaigns, and discuss the impact it is likely to have in November. They will explore questions such as:

  • How do diverse people of faith view President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and other candidates?​
  • What issues matter to Catholic, evangelical, Jewish, and Muslim believers, and particularly members of Latino and African American faith communities?
  • How are political parties and presidential campaigns seeking to reach and persuade voters for whom faith is an important part of their lives?
  • What issues matter most to particular religious voters?
  • What impact could faith and the faithful have in determining the outcome of the November elections?

Participants:

  • Adelle Banks is the projects editor and a national reporter for Religion News Service (RNS). Before joining RNS in 1995, she was a reporter in Florida, Rhode Island, and New York. She won the 2014 Wilbur Award for her coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.
  • Laura Barrón-López is the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, a CNN political analyst, and a spring 2024 fellow with Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.
  • Ryan Burge is an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, the author of several books including The Nones (2023) and 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America (2022), and a pastor of an American Baptist Church.
  • Robert Costa is the chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News. He is the former moderator of Washington Week on PBS and a former Washington Post reporter. He and Bob Woodward wrote the bestselling book Peril (2021) on the end of the Trump administration.
  • Michael Sean Winters is a columnist for National Catholic Reporter and a reporter at The Tablet where he covers the intersection of the Catholic community and U.S. politics and public life.

John Carr, founder of the Initiative and former director of justice and peace efforts for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, will moderate the conversation.

This Public Dialogue is part of the Initiative’s Faith and the Faithful series and is co-sponsored by the Institute of Politics and Public Service at Georgetown University.

Recording and Accessibility​

For those who cannot join us in person, the dialogue starting at 7:00 p.m. EST will be livestreamed and posted online for later viewing.

All in-person accommodation requests should be sent to cathsocialthought@georgetown.edu by February 8. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests.