What’s Faith Got To Do With It? Reporters on Faith and Faithful in the 2020 Presidential Election

In an election cycle with surprising religious themes and after political party conventions full of religious appeals, the Initiative is bringing together top reporters and experts at the intersection of faith and the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

These journalists will share their reporting and insights on how religious values and voters are shaping the election, along with the ways major party candidates President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden and their campaigns are reaching out. The online conversation will look forward to potential outcomes and their implications for religion, democracy, and the common good.

In addition, the dialogue will open with a summary and analysis of the latest polling on religious voters and trends from Pew Research Center.

Participants

• Carl Cannon is the Washington bureau chief of RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClear Media Group. He was a fellow-in-residence at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and is a past president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
• Jack Jenkins is a national reporter for Religion News Service covering religion and politics and the author of American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country (2020).
• Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupacis a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, where she contributes to domestic religion polls. She will open the dialogue with Pew’s recent data on religious voters and the election.
• Eugene Scott is a political reporter for the Washington Post’sThe Fix, a former fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service, and a former breaking news reporter for CNN Politics.

This Public Dialogue is part of the Initiative’s Faith and the Faithful series and is supported by the Democracy Fund.